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‘Nothing Can Stop Us Now,’ Salvager Says : Judge’s Ruling Clears Way for Raising Titanic

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From Times Wire Services

A judge’s ruling Friday on maritime law promulgated by King Edward II in 1342 cleared the way for a British-led project to raise the Titanic, which sank 73 years ago in 12,000 feet of water in the North Atlantic after striking an iceberg.

The ruling covered another sinking, that of the British liner Lusitania, which was torpedoed by a German submarine in 1915 during World War I off the Irish coast with the loss of 1,918 lives.

Judge Barry Sheen ruled that Britain had no claim to the $3.2 million in valuables that salvager John Pierce recovered from the Lusitania.

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The government had sought possession of the treasure under King Edward’s edict proclaiming the monarch’s right to “all wrecks of the sea, whales and great sturgeons.” But the judge ruled that the edict applied only to British territorial waters, and not to sinkings that occurred elsewhere. Both the Lusitania and the Titanic sank in international waters.

Pierce said Sheen’s ruling untied legal snags delaying his plans to raise the Titanic.

‘The Titanic is Coming Up’

“I’m astonished,” said Pierce, who was close to tears. “The Titanic is coming up. It will be about 18 months before we can mount the operation technically but there is nothing that can stop us now.”

The 46,000-ton Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, during its maiden voyage and went down with the loss of 1,513 lives. The wreck was found about 375 miles south of Newfoundland in September by an American-French expedition.

The exact location has been kept secret by the expedition, which wants to lobby the United Nations to leave the wreck undisturbed as a memorial to the victims. Eva Hart, 80-year-old survivor of the sinking, said it would be like “digging up a skeleton.”

“I’m terribly revolted and so are the rest of the survivors and God knows there are few of us left,” she said.

Many salvagers have said it would be impossible to raise the hull.

But Pierce insisted he can refloat the Titanic with the same type of giant airbags he used to refloat the Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior after it was sabotaged and sunk this summer in the harbor at Auckland, New Zealand.

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He plans to return the Titanic, which its builders claimed was unsinkable, to the Belfast shipyard where it was constructed and refurbish it as a tourist attraction.

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