Richie Kohler Dives Deep Inside the Britannic Shipwreck!

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Hello again everybody and welcome to my uh YouTube channel again. And I have to
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say I've got a real treat in store for you today. We have got a man who is a a
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proper diving legend here with us. Richie Kola. He's a filmmaker. He's an
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author and he's done as many dives on Britannic as anybody else. Maybe just
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even Kovac I know is your good buddy. You've done you've done about the same. you you know there isn't much you don't
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know about Britannic and today you're going to uh share with us some of the fantastic work that you've been doing
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over the last couple of years and obviously all the great artifacts you've covered. So good evening Richie.
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Good evening Dom and thank you for having me. By the way, I love your Deep Wreck Diver site uh and your podcast. Um
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I am actually one of your biggest fans. So if you check, you'll actually see I
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get a little badge or something from watching all your videos and stuff. So yeah, I'm I'm actually a Dom stalker. So
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there you go. Oh wow. Well, I tell you what, you know, I love you even more for that, Richie. So So thank you very much. So So give us
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a bit of context then. So uh Britannic the last few years. Tell us about it.
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Well, you know, like many other people, um, I found my way to Britannic because
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of Titanic. Everybody always, uh, knows the story of Titanic, but, um, for us in
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the deep w diving world, Britannic, I believe, has become like a Mount
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Everest. It is a technical dive uh that holds you know only few wrecks compare
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in size in magnitude in difficulty to access not necessarily difficulty of the
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dive. You know Dom a lot of uh a lot of our peers are making 120 150 meter dives
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on a somewhat regular basis. I think it becomes an expedition because of the
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logistics behind it about getting your kit, getting yourself there, getting the
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weather and and the tide and the the current to all come into play so you can
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get this magnificent dive. You know, there's the HMS Victoria off Lebanon. That's an epic dive, you know. But
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Britannic, I think, is a little more accessible than the than the Victoria for for knowing the fact that you don't
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have to go to Lebanon with with everything that that means. And and I
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think that although the Victoria is an incredible dive of of technical
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magnitude, it doesn't have the same gravitas as Britannic. You know, when
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when you dive Britannic and and you you look at her, you see
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Titanic because they are twin sisters. You know, the their their outline, their
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shape, their the hallways, the doors, the port holes, everything's identical.
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The mission was different. The cause of sinking was different. And obviously, the diving conditions between Titanic
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and Britannic are remarkably different. But for the technical sport diver
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like myself, in 2006 when I first made my first dives on Bratannic, I I fell in
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love with it and and it has haunted me. It has captured my obsession for next
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year be 20 years that Evan and I have been going back. I wouldn't say every
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year, but I believe now it's something like 12 expeditions in 20 years. So that
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sounds uh pretty obsessed, you know, to me. Um we went there working for
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television and we've stayed on for ourselves. Um
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when we went there, we wanted to answer questions about Titanic and using
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Britannic as a perfect scale model uh to answer those questions. And then we also
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wanted to answer questions about why Britannic sank so quickly. That process
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took a few years actually. It took us almost um almost a decade before we
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actually had photographic evidence of why Britannic sank quicker, three times
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faster than Titanic. Um and and at the end of that I found out that I just love
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this wreck. I mean, as as our viewers are seeing some of the video playing in
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the background, you're just getting a a taste of a shipwreck that stands 30 m
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off the seafloor, is primarily intact except for a crack right up at the bow, is 900 ft long, and
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with the exception of the items that we removed and that a few things, a handful of things that Jacqu Gustau removed,
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everything is there. So when you visit this wreck, you you are really looking
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at a time capsule of a moment in time captured of an iconic ship uh in gin
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clearar water that um just has wow factor written all over it.
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Yeah, you're absolutely right and it's really clear from the the video that we're watching now. You know, the fact
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is there are I can't really think of any any wrecks of this size where you can do
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what you are currently what you're currently doing swimming through. I mean, there's plenty of wrecks of this, you know, similar kind of size. You
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know, Lucatania, Justicia, you know, they're all broadly the same size, but there isn't any of
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them where you can do this. You can do this with them. They're all they're all in bits.
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No. And you know this even getting to do this was uh 10 to 15 years in the
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making. you know, Simon Mills, um, who is the owner of the wreck, had to work
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diligently handinand with the, uh, Ministry of Antiquities, the effort, if
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you will, uh, trying to get all the
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stars to align so that a we would have an opportunity
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to go inside the wreck and document areas that had never been seen before.
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And I'm not just talking about like in the in the late um 90s a series of open
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circuit divers went inside and did film some of the areas that we're looking at.
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But again, open circuit with all the limitations of that. Here we are doing 40 50 minute bottom times at a maximum
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of 120 m and swimming in
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in some cases close to uh 70 m and in one case at least 100 meters inside the
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wreck uh horizontal travel because of watertight bulkheads and the such that
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there's only limited access in. So, you know, these are some incredible shipwreck penetrations that we did that
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I'm really proud of the team. Um, I'm proud of of uh every aspect of the
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planning phase. Uh, you know, we when we do these type of expeditions, it's it's
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not one leader. um we are a team and in that we divide the responsibility,
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we divide um all of the chores and we we also divide and try to share uh what it
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is that everybody would really like to do or see. So it it is the essence of a
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team. There is no I in you know team as they say. Um, I've been fortunate in
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that I've been part of the leadership on these programs mostly because of my
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experience. But that being said, I listen to uh my people and my people come to me and
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they're like, "Hey, we should go here. Hey, we should do this." And quite often
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they know or see something that I don't. So, the ability to uh I think have an
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open mind and and um allow everybody uh
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a voice in what we're doing really has lent itself to the success of the
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project. It's really interesting that you talk about the success of the project because
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I think this year you've had some um you know particular successes, haven't you? And you know, and and if you're going to
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if you're going to say, you know, one thing to capture that, it has got to be this, hasn't it? It's uh it's the you
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know, the bell off the uh the the crow's nest. And you know, I How does it feel,
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Richie, to be sat there like that with that in front of you? You know, um we we have to always give
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uh everyone their credit. The bell was located in 2019 by two divers. um the
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late Joseph Maserani of the DV Tenacious and his dive buddy uh Ricky Simon, they
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they located the bell um and brought the the location to Simon Mills's attention
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back in 2019. And I think that really lit a fire under Simon. But think about
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it, 2019, it took six years before we were able to actually be allowed to
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recover it. And and so the bell to many people and and you know, to you and I as
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as uh hardcore wreckers, the bell is is definitely a fantastic object to find.
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In the case of an unknown shipwreck, it could be the identifying feature, the the the literally the name of the ship
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on it. Um, some people be romantic and say, "Well, the bell is the voice of the ship, the soul of the ship." I think for
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us in this project, the bell was absolutely one of the the the lead things we had to
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safely recover. It was definitely the heaviest. That bell is uh 70 kilos, so
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it's a big heavy bell. Um it was buried in shell hash and you know was uh
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covered with these really sharp oyster shells. So making it dangerous for the divers at depth to handle. Um so it was
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it was work. It was work at 120 m. But then if you ask me well what was the
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most fun to do? Well, you know, when Simon Mills would lay out the deck plans
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of Britannic and go, you know, when she was designed as a passenger liner, these were the storage cabinets for the
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crystal and this was where the the silverware would be and this is where the expensive china would be. That's
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what Richie Kohler likes to do is to get inside the ship, change deck levels,
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swim down hallways, zigzag and weave myself into the wreck, and then shine my
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light in a corner. And I know you know what I'm talking about, and get that big glowback of a pile of crockery or
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silverware or whatever the goal was. and and then
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you know obviously one of the the mandates by the effort the archaeologists we were working with was
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every item that we were to recover had to be documented fully in situ. We had
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to film it three ways to Sunday. Many objects like the bell had to have photoggramometry done in situ, meaning
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we had to really go down there with what's called a stadia or a a measuring device so we could scale the video and
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still photography. So every object that was recovered was both still and videoed
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in place before it was ever touched. And as you can see, some of these bits and
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pieces are are absolutely stunning. Um, they're in pristine condition because of how deep inside the shipwreck they were.
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I am incredibly proud of my team. Um, there were cases where I was uh
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assigning or suggesting people go to a particular area and get some of the
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objects and my team was like, "No, we can do this. We should get that." And
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again, it is a a bit of a democracy in in that I was outvoted. And one of those
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objects, believe it or not, is what you're looking at right now. It's that lantern. Um they they wanted to get this
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lantern. And and I was like, you know what? It looks like it's fused in. I don't think we should bother with the
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lamp locker. But they said, "No, this is a beautiful, pristine lantern. It's in
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perfect condition. how could we leave this? And so when the archaeologists um
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knew that we could recover it uh without having any um impact to the shipwreck, I
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really want to take a minute to talk about that. One of the mandates given to us by the effort was that we were not to
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use tools. We were not to use uh force. Any object that we would have recover
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had to be free and loose. We were to not we were not to negatively impact or
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create any bare metal or do anything to
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forcibly remove an object. So crockery fallen um bits of porcelain. And when I
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say bits of porcelain, we did recover a sink. We recovered a couple of things that haven't made it to the um the media
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yet. Um, I'm not at liberty to talk about some of the things, but as you're looking at that image right there, that
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is one of the most beautiful things I've seen inside the wreck, which is the engine room makers plate. And so that's
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about um 150 ft inside the engine room. It is a
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true penetration dive to get to it. And it is sitting there mounted between
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those two cage lamps. Um, and you can if you zoom in on it, you can see it says
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Harland and Wolf Belfast engineers. It's it's just an incredible piece, but we're
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not allowed to touch that one because it's in perfect condition and perfectly mounted. So, they do not want us at this
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point to remove it because that would be a negative impact to the shipwreck.
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And and big hand of respect to them for for saying that and big hand of respect to you for kind of doing it. I mean, I
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have to say I I I I I still think that should be on the surface, but you know, that's that's that's just me because at
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some point that is all going to collapse and that's that's never going to be seen again, is it? But
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we we understand and that is why these videos, these photographs are, you know,
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legacy. They will live on. These photographs and and video will live on.
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Well, you and I both know one day one expedition is going to go out to set the hook on Britannic and they're going to
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come back with the tragic news. They're going to say she's collapsed. It happens to every shipwreck. Dom, you know it.
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I'm pretty sure most of our viewers know it. And it'll be a sad day. It'll be a
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very, very sad day because when you think about it, how many
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over 105 year old shipwrecks are still intact with their engine rooms intact,
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their engines still bolted to the floor, catwalks in place. You can go into the
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boiler rooms and swim through the boilers and be surrounded by intact cat
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works, uh, catwalks and ladders, uh, staircases, read the gauges, literally
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read the gauge faces, the instructions for for for different pieces of machinery, and and of course that that
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will one day end, and it'll probably um, I think be like a house of cards. I
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think that once either the boiler breaks free or the or the engine I apologize
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for that or the engine breaks free um it's going to
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impact the wreck in such a way that it'll be unreoverable meaning that it's going to force the upper decks to fold
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to the seafloor and then she's going to cave in and look like every other shipwreck we dive.
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Absolutely. It's it's a guarantee. It's not a uh an if. It's just a when. And uh
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you know, hopefully though, you've got a few more years left diving it. A few more years left exploring it. You know,
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um it's it's on my to-do list as well. I'm I'm I'm going to get out there at some point and do it. Now,
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let me know. I'd love to go with you. That's be honest with you. I mean, I'm 63, Dom, so I've got
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just a couple of years left in my deep diving. Um, I'm gonna back it down to probably 70 and 80 meters, you know,
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just get a little more ride out of it if I can. But, um, yeah, you know, there's
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there there's been such a long period of time building towards this recovery.
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And again, I I've got to give Simon Mills his props. He is the owner of the ship. Um the Greeks respect him as the
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owner of the um of the letter of Mark. That's his book uh that he put together
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for this uh project. As a matter of fact, um all of the underwater and
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interior photographs uh in his book were put together by our team and uh over the
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last five years. So, uh, you know, if you enjoy some of the video you're looking at and you want to know a little
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bit more about the stories behind them and some of the still images, it's obviously in the book. Shameless plug
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for him. I don't get a dime out of it, but um, I am proud and I'm proud of my team uh, for all of the hard work they
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did to put those photographs in. And I also want to give a nod out to that incredible image, which is a drawing or
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a painting done by a gentleman named William Barney. Uh he's an incredible
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artist and he's done uh a lot of uh not only uh beautiful paintings like this,
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but he's done some all of our team shirts and he's a member of the team. Even though he's not a wreck diver, he
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is a big fan of Britannic. And um he just does incredible work. And that was
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his illustration showing Evan and I. And uh the third diver would be Richie Stevenson because we're the only three
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people that have ever been in the boiler rooms as far as that. There was I think
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one other person named John Shatteran who actually got into the boiler rooms with us as well. So technically only
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four people have ever been uh traveling. And it's not a pretty by the way if it makes a pretty book cover but it ain't a
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pretty dive. Boiler rooms are just not as sexy as engine rooms. I got to tell you, you know, it's it's a tight, nasty
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spot. Um, very easily to stir up. Um, and the only
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reason we were going in there was to answer questions about whether or not the watertight doors were open and clo
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open or closed. Um but but getting back to the big picture of the entire project
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um and given Simon his nod, he worked hard to have the the Greeks um the Greek
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effort allow the recovery. Um my hope is
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is that um objects that we've recovered or continued to recover because we are
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scheduled to return in 26 and and do a little bit more recovery um because
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there's a couple of things still on the list that have to be um picked up
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that some of these objects will return to Britannic's homeport. I really would
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love to see some of these objects in the Belf Titanic Belfast Museum because I
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really believe that for us who are really the people who appreciate
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shipwrecks and and the stories that they tell and the human connection, it would be wonderful for for people to go to the
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Titanic Museum and and be able to see objects from Britannic and then learn
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about Britannic's story. Absolutely. It's it's that would be
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absolutely awesome if that does happen. And you know, big hand to everybody who's
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trying to uh trying to make that happen. I just want to take you back a bit, Richie, which is um one of the things I
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think people are going to be really interested in is the diving aspect of diving Britannic. You've covered the
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history, you've covered the artifacts, it's fantastic. But you mentioned just now um going inside it. And one of the
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things I I've got is your your dive profile here, which uh I think shows up
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really clearly. This is from um I think one of your dives this year. Yep. So So what we're looking what we're
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looking at on that dive is that if you recall um I mentioned that the the
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shipwreck lays uh or rises 30 meters off the seafloor. So when you descend down,
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as you see us descending down, we hit the top of the wreck at roughly 90 m, 95
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m, and then we travel um laterally along the wreck until we
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get to, in this particular case, I believe on this dive, we were going to be going into an area called the Turkish
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Baths. So, what you're looking at now is I get into the wreck and I descend down
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into the wreck to the far side. So, I'm basically going down to almost roughly
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110 mters um inside the wreck looking for access to this door that would take
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us into a steam room called the Turkish baths. basically the
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cooling room which was in a very attractive room with these beautiful handpainted tiles and um furniture uh
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padded furniture and it was just a very opulent room. And one of the big questions that a lot of people,
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historians and and other experts regarding the White Star line and the the Olympians as the Titanic, Olympic
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and Britannic were known, wanted to know, was there some of these opulent
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things on board this ship. So, as you can see in that dive profile, we swam
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along the the the the hull at 300 ft, dropped down to almost uh 400 ft, then
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found the room, filmed the room, and now we have to reverse that and come back up. I mean, you know, it doesn't sound
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like much, but when you think about the big scale of of these dives and dives in
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the magnitude, you know, we're talking about 30 meter dips and changes in your
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dive profile. 30 meters. That's That's pretty big. You know, I don't care who
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you are. You know, it's like if I if you're a sport diver visiting Britannic
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for the first time, I would bet dollars to donuts that um the operator uh
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Giannis, who owns Kia Divers, is going to say, "Hey, look, it's your first dive. Go down, swim along the prominade
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at, you know, 100 meters, and that's your first day of diving." And then you
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think about it as as your skill and and experience on the wreck grow, well then
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you could start expanding that, but think about what the extra 30 m of depth
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is going to add to your decompression profile. You know what I'm saying? So like you could stay up here at at 90 95
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m or you can go down to 120 m. So where do you want that's a big difference?
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That's a difference between a 90 meter dive and 120 m dive. That's really significant, especially when you're
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inside the wreck. And this is also that small matter of trying
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to find your way back out again as well, isn't there? And then even when you've got back out, you need to find your way back to the shot line as well,
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presumably. Well, that that's a great that's a great segue now into like looking at this
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dive. when when um my primary dive partner, and don't get me wrong, I dive with a lot of different people through
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the years on Britannic, but my primary dive buddy and partner has always been
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Evan Kovac. And and one of the things that um we have an understanding is Evan
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is the consumate professional um underwater photographer. That's his job. That's what he does.
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um we first met and he was working um you know off Broadway and then he started working with me on the History
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Channel and the next thing you know he's the director of photography and he has um obviously a very um
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incredible filming platform. So the point of that is that Evans the A
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camera. So what that means is he goes in first. My job as his dive buddy is to
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bring the real. So Evan and people have often looked at our videos and be like,
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"Hey, how are you doing this with no line?" It's like, "No, actually there there's a line and he's not alone."
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I'm laying back behind him and I am running the reel. And so whenever he's
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done filming, obviously if I get it, there are shots where Evan will put me in the shot because they like to see a
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diver in the shot. But majority of the work that we were doing for the effort
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and for Simon Mills was clean photos or video of the wreck without a diver in it
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for scale uh without anybody stirring up the visibility. So, in the case of the
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Turkish bath, when we got to the doorway, I laid back. Evan drops through
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the door and then I come through the doorway holding on to a reel and a light
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being a what we refer to as a breadcrumb or a lighthouse. So, Evan could go into
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the room, circle around the room, video it, and then I am at the doorway. No
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matter how bad he disturbed the visibility, I am at the doorway with a light with a reel and and able to help
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him get back through the door. When we exit the wreck, I go to the side and
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Evan follows the reel or the line out and then I reel out behind him. And so
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that has been our our way of operating on Britannic. Um, there have been times
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where, uh, we lay line and we leave line for a while. Um, but we try to always
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take it back out and not, um, a pollute the wreck, which some people would say
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that is what we're doing. um or constitute a
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I'm trying to think of the right way to um hazard maybe or if you go back in there
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or well you know you don't no one else is supposed to go inside the wreck and what
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I mean by that is we have a permit to go in and and and when people uh go to
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Britannic um they're told by the operator they're not allowed to go inside the wreck at all. they can go
27:46
into the prominade because it's there's no overhead. So you're you're just swimming in a valley. That's okay. But
27:52
you're not allowed to penetrate into the wreck. And so we remove our lines so that they don't constitute a um
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you know, hey, look, there's a line. Let me follow it. You know, that's Yeah. And one of the
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other things is that you always have to have a guide when you're when you're diving with Kia divers or any of the
28:13
operators that may uh take divers out to Britannic. One of the mandates is for
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every three divers, the fourth diver has to be an approved guide um who's going to make sure that everybody's playing by
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the rules. Um so, you know, again, we're really really lucky. We're fortunate and
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and and we re we recognize that we are having been given this opportunity by
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Simon and by the effort to to do this documentation to do these recoveries.
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Um, it's really a nice way of using a lifetime of shipwreck diving experience,
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a lifetime of recovering objects from shipwrecks and now doing it so that it
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benefits a museum. It benefits everyone because the objects that we are recover
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we have recovered and will continue to recover are slated um to go into the
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brand new maritime museum that'll be in Athens uh scheduled to open next year.
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So that means that people that aren't scuba divers can go and see these
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objects and learn more about the story of Britannic. And that's you know that is fantastic.
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So I do think that is bringing stuff up. so people can see it is it's absolutely
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fantastic. One of the things I just want to drag you back to Richie because I know people watching it will be interested in is is the amount of
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decompression and the deco you know strategies and everything. I mean we can see here you know from this thing that
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kind of you get to your first stop about the 42 minute mark in this dive and then you're getting out of the water um well
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basically three hours later on this dive and I know you've done you've done a lot longer ones than these. Um, and we've
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got some we've got some pictures uh of what it what it is like to be decompressing on Britannic. Um, so
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please tell us about that. The first first rule of Richie Kohler
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talking about decompression diving is don't follow me. I don't know what I'm
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doing. Okay, that's the first thing. All right, I've I don't know how I've gotten away with it for so long because I don't
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know what I'm doing, but somehow I've gotten lucky. Um, the reality is it's
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not called decompression, it's called decompression theory. Um, so recognize
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that you can do everything correctly on your computer and still get bent. I have
30:42
to say that. So, you know, don't follow me. Don't look at my decompression profiles. don't look at my gas switches,
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um my my algorithm andor any of my information and say, "Oh, this is what I
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want to do." Um it's an incredibly personal choice. And I think you know what I'm talking about when I say I dive
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dayto day by how I feel. So if I'm coming up, Dom, and I don't feel it, I'm
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going to hang longer. Some days I'm feeling it and I might get a little more aggressive on my decompression. So, some
31:18
of the things that that I have been known to do on on big dives like
31:24
Bratannic or 120 meter dives is that I will um do a gas switch in my computers
31:32
to uh tell my computer that I'm using a a dilluent gas that has a lower helium
31:40
content and that will in in some ways accelerate my decompression. Other times
31:46
in other dives I will tell my computer um I have let's say 850 but the reality
31:55
is I've got 8.85 so I'm lying to my computer about the percentage of helium.
32:00
Um again don't follow me. I'm just telling you what I do. There's a lot of people out there that are doing similar
32:07
things to this. Um because we found out a long time ago that for some reason the
32:15
computer algorithms are penalizing us heavily for the amount of helium. That
32:21
being said, if you listen to me and get bent, it's on you because I said I don't know what
32:27
I'm doing, so don't do what I'm doing. Okay. Uh so that is why if you look at my
32:33
computer um algorithm that you displayed uh how we're getting out of the water.
32:39
People are saying to me, you did a dive um back in 2006 and you did the same
32:44
dive and you were decompressing for five hours. Now all of a sudden you're decompressing for three hours. What are
32:50
you doing different? Well, I just alluded to a few of the things that we're doing that are differently. Um,
32:58
one of the things that's really important is to follow the bell curve. One of the things that I really love about um, the AP unit, um, and the
33:07
evolution diving computer was that you can follow your ceiling. You weren't
33:14
mandated to doing uh, what you're looking at here, which is a stepped profile. Um, when I was diving the AP,
33:22
I'd have a true bell curve because I was coming up like almost every minute I'd
33:27
be coming up a few inches. And so here when I'm using the shear water,
33:33
you're noticing more of a stepped profile, especially as we get shallower, you're seeing more and more of these
33:39
these steps. So, um, I could bend my sheer water. Um, it'll still give me
33:44
decompression information. I don't like bending a computer because if you bend a
33:50
in my mind, if I bend my computer and then I get bent, well, who's the fool,
33:58
right? So, I don't mind lying to it as long as it doesn't get bent. And then I
34:05
get out of the water and I'm feeling good. I'm like, "Hey, that worked." So, and by the way, I didn't invent this.
34:10
I'm not going to throw my friends under the bus, but some some really experienced guys showed me the way and
34:16
I've been following them and playing with it. Um, and it's been knockwood working for me. Um, once we get to those
34:23
shallower stops, you you were showing some of the um Starfish Enterprise um
34:29
decompression station that uh you know, we borrowed uh from Starfish Enterprise
34:36
back in the day. Uh, it was brought out to in 2006
34:42
by Mo Spencer and Lee Bishop and we've been using it ever since. Um, it just
34:49
makes, as you know, a really comfortable way for a number of divers to do their
34:56
decompression stages. Um, all relaxed, clipped in if there is, as there often
35:02
is, a bit of a tide or current pushing the divers around. The other part of it
35:07
that's important of dives of this magnitude is that there's pre-staged
35:12
emergency gas on the station. Which means that if if a
35:18
diver was to come up and be on an open circuit bailout or a backup bailout
35:25
rebreather situation and was in need of additional gas, yes, we would signal the
35:32
top side that we have a protocol for this, but there's already gas in the water. So that that really helps put
35:40
people's mind at ease. If you wanted to take an air or oxygen or nitrox break,
35:46
the gas is there. Um, a lot of times we like to hydrate or have a snack on some
35:51
of the longer hangs. So, the support team will bring down um camel backs or
35:58
or juice bottles or juice bags. Um, sometimes grapes, different, you know,
36:04
HBRO, gummy bears, all kinds of different things to keep you, uh, keep
36:09
your energy level up, keep you hydrated. Um, sometimes just moving your jaw, getting getting off the loop a little
36:16
bit, throwing something in your mouth, getting on a open circuit rag for a little bit, drinking, chewing, getting
36:22
the getting your jaw moving takes a, you know, you know what it's like to be in the water for hours with a mouthpiece.
36:29
And sometimes just that little bit of moving your jaw around, even if you don't want to eat, just the process of
36:35
chewing actually is kind of beneficial to you. So, uh those are some of the things that we do. And of course, as
36:41
you've uh mentioned on pre previous uh podcasts, you know, there's people that
36:46
watch videos or listen to music. Me personally, I I tried that for a while,
36:52
but I just really like to meditate. A lot of times I I think about the dive. I
36:57
think about the next dive. I think about what I'm going to have for dinner. I wonder if I left the lights on at home.
37:03
All kinds of stuff goes through my mind on decompression. Be fascinating talking to you uh to you, Richie. But of course,
37:10
um you know, I think we need to we need to kind of bring it to a close. And probably the the best way to bring it to
37:15
a close is with some more of this fantastic video from inside the wreck. Um and and maybe your kind of thoughts.
37:21
you've you've covered a little bit on what's uh what's coming next, but can you give us give us a bit of a tease? You know, you know, tit titers, what
37:28
what what's 26 got in store for you? Well, where you're looking at is this is
37:34
the grand staircase. The video that I gave you is video that has been seen
37:39
before. Um, one of the mandates by uh, Simon Mills is that we're not showing
37:45
any um, areas that um, haven't been seen
37:50
because he's kind of hoping that um, a major production company would want to,
37:55
you know, have an expose or, you know, be able to to show a lot of these um,
38:02
images and video for the first time. So, what I'm showing you right here is an
38:07
area that that um has been often filmed before. And and by the way, I'm not the
38:12
primary car cameraman here. This my camera is actually hanging between my legs as I'm tying off a reel or um
38:20
getting the mark the SMB, excuse me, the um strobes hooked up and stuff like
38:25
that. So, uh uh Evan is the alpha camera. So, this is just my GoPro for
38:31
Richie Coler fun film. So this area is the grand staircase and for a lot of our
38:37
work in 23 20 and 24 and 25 we focused
38:43
on this area because it gave us access to the grand dining
38:49
room uh the first class larder or pantries where we were hoping to find
38:54
silverware crystal and fine expensive crockery. And as you can imagine, being the grand
39:01
staircase, it gives you access from the top of the ship all the way to the bottom of the ship. And at the very
39:06
bottom of the staircase is where um we found the Turkish baths. Um you know,
39:14
some of the footage that you're looking at is just me um exploration footage in the area around the Grand Staircase. You
39:21
can see some of the beds or the bunks for the injured sailors. You can see the
39:26
and wounded soldiers, excuse me. You can see the remains of the ceiling and and different plumbing fixtures and the what
39:33
have you. Um, one of the things that uh George Vandro said when he came up from
39:40
his dive, which I think is kind of funny and yet true, he says, "I can't believe
39:46
it's bigger on the inside." And that, as funny as that sounds, it's actually kind
39:53
of true because, you know, you go into a shipwreck thinking it's going to be tight and confined and you get inside
40:00
Britannic and it's expansive. You know, there Britannic did not have the
40:06
interior compartments of all the these cabins because it was opened up for
40:11
wards for wounded soldiers. So, um, there was very few interior partitions.
40:18
And you can imagine that from port to starboard, um, she would just have been rows and rows and rows of of beds.
40:26
And so, you get in there and it's just bang open. And then you have to travel for a period of time to get to an area
40:33
where there'll be some other partitions and um, cabinetry and the such. So, what
40:39
you're looking at here is just a huge open area of what at one point was
40:44
intended to be a dining room, but um on Britannic wound up being a birthing
40:50
area. And so next year your plan is to to go
40:55
back and do some more in these kind of areas or uh you know there's there's uh the
41:01
aspirations to go back and try to get inside the
41:06
inside the swimming pool. um to see if it's still filled with water and
41:14
and uh no to actually see if it was as that the the the
41:20
swimming area on board Titanic was absolutely gorgeous and opulent with
41:28
marble and beautiful tiles and independent changing stalls. And so
41:33
they're really curious um if Britannic mimicked that, if she had a different
41:40
type of design. So these are the kind of things that hearken back to Britannic's
41:47
pedigree as a premier ocean liner. And so those are the kind of things that we
41:53
want to do and and image. We also are continuing to image many of the objects
42:01
that directly relate to her mission as a hospital ship. Gurnies, wheelchairs,
42:08
medical supplies, X-ray machine. Can you believe there was an X-ray machine on board Britannic? But
42:15
there was. There was a surgical ward. There was a morg. Um, you know, uh,
42:20
obviously this is a um, a pretty big task because each dive only
42:27
gets about 30 minutes. You're diving always in a pair, always in a minimum of a team of two. Um, and you know, weather
42:35
permitting, you may only get seven days of diving, nine days of diving per twoe
42:41
period. This is actually one of my favorite little pathways. This is Scotland Road. Um Evan Kovac and I were
42:48
the first two people to ever go down this way and get into the engine room.
42:53
And it was it still is one of my favorite dives. And it shows you the level of
43:02
uh intact uh uh uh corridors, doorways.
43:08
Yes. You can see where on Scotland Road there was a wooden floor. You can see the caulking in between the the only
43:15
thing left is the caulking. That's none of the wood. That's just the caul that was in and the silt sitting on the
43:21
caulking in between it. And and as you swim through, you see all of these independent little doorways leading into
43:28
um engineer stateooms, engineer washrooms, because this was a service corridor that leads directly to the
43:35
turbine room and to the engine room. And uh yeah, one one of my uh favorite
43:43
areas. Actually, I like the whole wreck. I can't lie. But this this was one of my favorites because we knew we were the
43:48
very first people uh to ever go in. As a matter of fact, if you look um there's
43:54
you can see I think on my I don't not sure in this image if if there is a line on the right side or I'm laying the
44:01
line. I think Evan's in front of me and I am laying the line behind Evan. So this is my GoPro footage um behind Evan.
44:09
And uh yeah, that was uh that was an epic dive. And yeah, we found things
44:14
like this, which we thought were bedding mattresses, but they're actually insulation for the engines.
44:20
And uh yeah, some really cool footage you got here. If I say so myself.
44:27
No, no, no. It's ab it's absolutely insane. And you know, to think that this is 100 or 110 meters deep or whatever it
44:34
is. Yeah. You get about 110 meters right here. 110 meters inside the rack. Yeah, I mean that is Yeah, it's incredible.
44:41
It's mind-bogglingly uh amazing. So there you go. I've given you a bit of a you know bit of uh a bit
44:48
of a shout there. But yeah, no it is to do this is is just is incredible. And uh and actually this is we are going to
44:55
finish with this shot because I know this is one of your favorite bits, Richie, as well. So that's Evan's camera. You can see the
45:02
difference between a real camera and my GoPro.
45:08
But that's me swimming out of the fourth funnel. Um, and you know, it's just,
45:16
you know, one of those things when you swim out into the blue, you're happy. Yeah. You you you've seen and imaged
45:23
some great stuff, but the dive's over and now the 3 to four hour deco begins.
45:29
So, yeah. Yeah. And, uh, that's that's the the cost of doing this kind of diving,
45:35
isn't it? And we we know we we both know that price so well. We've done it so many times. But it's
45:41
you know what when you've when you don't you never remember the DK. What you remember is you remember going down Scotland remote road. You're coming out
45:48
of the fourth funnel. You remember seeing the Turkish steam baths you know all that kind of stuff. That's what you
45:53
remember isn't it? And uh I mean it's been fantastic Richie. I really appreciate you taking the time to share
45:59
the share this incredible foot and these incredible tales with us. And and you
46:04
know what? Don't share it. Why are you doing it? If you're not if you're not willing to inspire, you know, years ago,
46:12
I used to work for television and uh somebody once said to me, "What is it that you hope to achieve?" And I go, "At
46:19
the end of the day, if you can uh um inspire someone,
46:27
you're winning. If you can educate someone, well, that's pretty good, too."
46:32
And at the end of that, if you can entertain them, well, then that's the trifecta. Okay? So, if you can educate,
46:38
inspire, and and entertain, it's the win. So, I I
46:44
love to think that um I've got something to offer. I've been diving couple of years now. Um I love shipwrecks. I love
46:51
I love the stories of shipwrecks. I love the people stories of shipwrecks. And
46:57
what better way than Deep Wreck Diver and and people like you to share those
47:03
stories and and and get other people excited about it. Absolute certain. And uh on that note,
47:11
Richie, I'm going to say I'm going to draw it to a close. It's been absolutely amazing. Uh you know, educate, inspire,
47:19
and entertain. I'm absolutely going to take that one away. Cheers, mate. Thank you very much. Cheers.

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