The Titanic wreck has provided us with many unforgettable images, icons and reminders of human hubris; the empty lifeboat davits...the telemotor which once held the ship's wheel and where Robert Hichens frantically flung the wheel to evade the wall of ice ahead...the noble prow emerging from the mud rather than the North Atlantic swell...and the crow's nest, mounted to the foreward mast, and where lookouts Fleet and Lee first saw the invincible force of nature, and warned the bridge by ringing the warning bell and telephoning the bridge.
The wreck of the ship was first found (at least, officially) in 1985 and provided a valuable catalogue of images. Images of the crow's nest are reproduced below.
The above montage displays a selection of photos of the crow's nest; from left to right: the nest in 1985, taken during the joint French-American IFREMER/WHOI search; two pictures taken seconds apart in 1986; and an image captured by image intensifying cameras mounted beneath the Wood's House submersible Alvin, again in 1986. The white linear object protruding from the right hand side of the nest may be the remains of a strut used to attach a canvas "weather screen" to protect the look-outs. (Sources: "National Geographic" magazine, December 1985 and "Titanic: The Nightmare and the Dream" documentary, August 1986).
The above schematic displays a crude front view of how the nest looked in 1912 (left) and 1985 (right). The dashed line indicates the location of the entry portal to the nest, which would otherwise be obscured. Note how much the nest had sagged to starboard.
In 1986, when Dr.Ballard and his crew left the wreck, they had hoped that she would be left unmolested. This naive wish was to remain intact for one year, until a French salvage team arrived on site with the intention of retrieving artefacts from the ship and debris field. It was obvious from the meagre collection of photographs and video released that something was amiss with the Titanic wreck... the crow's nest was gone. Had it been destroyed by the salvagers?
Much has been claimed about the loss of the crow's nest, most of it by people who either should know better, or can't back up their claims: for instance, Dr.Ballard writes in his revised "The Discovery of the Titanic" (1989) that the nest collapsed, "perhaps in the act of getting at the ship's telephone that was inside"; Don Lynch in "Titanic - An Illustrated History" (1992) says that "as it [the bell] was pulled from the mast, the crow's nest itself collapsed"; and one internet correspondent, who has since feigned death, claimed that footage showed a submersible colliding into the crow's nest in 1987, making it disintegrate. All of these claims are either false or dubious. The ship's bell was recovered from the debris field, and, indeed, footage of the nest in 1985 and 1986 show that the bell wasn't even attached to the mast. The telephone was also retrieved from the debris field, away from the ship's hull. And the request for proof of the submersible's 'crash' was ignored, and has never been provided.
It should be noted that the selection of claims above come from people opposed to salvage; therefore, any proof of carelessness on the part of the salvagers is immediately seized upon to reinforce their claim that the wrecksite is hallowed ground and should not be disturbed. This information is then devoured by the masses and unquestioningly repeated, mantra-like.
So, if we dispassionately put the falsehoods aside and consider the evidence, what can we say? Was the nest destroyed accidentally, or did it collapse naturally? Before I commence, one thing should be evident; the nest was initially attached to the mast via its back panels, and also by supporting struts and a ring of rivets underneath. In 1985, the nest was perched on the mast at a precipitous angle. The only possible point of connection was at the rear portside area where the nest joined the mast. If the strength of this single point was diminished (after all, the whole wreck is festooned with corrosion) then the collapse of the nest was an inevitability. Of course, people's suspicions would question the fact that the crow's nest had stood on the wreck for 75 years and only "disappeared" when human intervention commenced. Surely the two are connected? Maybe; but we have no idea of how the nest had deteriorated between 1912 and 1985. When the Titanic came to rest on the seabed, perhaps the nest was not lying as askew as it was the ship was found in 1985?
The collapsed crow's nest as seen in the 1987 documentary
"Treasures of the Titanic". Click on the image to toggle with
a non-annotated version.
An avi file of this fly-by of the nest, obtained from the "Titanic - A Voyage of Discovery" CD-ROM can be downloaded here.
What could have caused such damage? has a theory, presented here; basically, after viewing the 1987 footage where the French submersible "Nautile" cleared away the cables from the portside of the bow to remove the rust that obscured the Titanic's incised name in the hull, he theorises that a movement of the cables tugged on the nest, causing it to collapse further. Ken Marschall has a few reservations on this theory, based on the tension in the cable that impinged on the sagging, starboard side of the nest.
Another theory has been proposed by Parks Stephenson in this forum. He suggests that a curved fragment of highly corroded metal on A-deck could be the remains of the nest. If so, this would mean that the nest was snagged up and aft by some means. There were no towed undersea packages (like the Wood's Hole unmanned camera sled ANGUS) in operation in the 1987 expedition, which means that the nest would have to have been caught up either in the submersible Nautile or, highly unlikely, the ROV Robin. Parks' claim needs to be verified in light of the lack of released photographs or footage of this area of this wreck. It would also be hard to reconcile this "up and aft" theory with the 1987 shots of the collapsed nest, which show it crumpled, angled forward and flattened against the foremast.
Mosaics of the wreck as seen in 1986 and 2004 are presented below. Larger versions can be found in Dr.Ballard's "The Discovery of the Titanic" and "Return to Titanic". The images have been annotated to include the location of cables that impinge on the crow's nest, and also the area where Parks Stephenson claims to have seen the remains of the nest.
As one can see from the "Titanica" and "Ghosts of the Abyss" shots, a cable is still snagged under the starboard remains of the base of the crow's nest. The two cables that snake from the area of the nest to the bollards along the portside edge of the forecastle are still there and don't seem to have moved; one of these cables still seems to connect with the nest, but in the 2004 mosaic, the cable appears to run near the underside of the foremast. The lack of perspective makes it difficult to be definitive about this. However, on the starboard side of the foremast, and lying on the well deck, appears a cable which was not there in 1986. One end trails to the foreward starboard side of the well deck, the other is lying almost under the crow's nest and seems to have been snapped off from... somewhere. Could this be the remains of the cable that Roy Mengot hypothesises pulled the crow's nest apart?
An excellent compilation of shots of the crows nest is here