Deep-sea mapping effort backed by Sonardyne offers clearest images to date of the Titanic wreck

After almost 40 years since its discovery, the wreck of the Titanic has finally been captured for the first time in a full-sized digital scan.

The project involved a number of big international players in the marine sector, including Voyis, EIVA, Magellan Ltd – and Sonardyne, an underwater engineering firm from Yateley.

Where before there were only murky, piecemeal snapshots of the vessel, the combined work of these companies has produced a highly accurate 3D reconstruction, comprising more than 700,000 individual images.

These were provided by a fleet of remote-controlled submersibles, after more than 200 hours spent travelling along the length and breadth of the wreck to capture it from every angle.

Gerhard Seiffert of Guernsey-based Magellan Ltd led the planning for the expedition, which proved tougher than predicted.

He told BBC News: “The depth of it, almost 4,000m, represents a challenge.

“You have currents at the site too, and we’re not allowed to touch anything so as not to damage the wreck.

“The other challenge is that you have to map every square centimetre – even uninteresting parts, like on the debris field you have to map mud.

“But you need this to fill in between all these interesting objects.”

It’s an important development in the ongoing study of the wreck, since between disintegration in the water and decomposition by microbes, time is ticking.

So while the Titanic itself is gradually lost to the sea – again – its digital equivalent will be available to researchers and historians for centuries to come.

For Sonardyne, this latest project hasn’t been their first encounter with the Titanic, which began its fateful voyage just an hour’s drive from the company’s headquarters.

Back in 2021 their long-range underwater tracking technology played a pivotal role in a six-week survey of the wreck conducted by OceanGate Inc.

The expedition saw OceanGate deploying its human-occupied submersible, Titan, down to a depth of 4,000m, meaning that it would require a reliable way to communicate back and forth with the surface while accurately mapping the Titanic from the sea floor.

Sonardyne provided the solution in the form of its Ranger 2 USBL (ultra-short baseline) system – which can manage a range beyond 11,000m – along with its AvTrak 6 transceiver.

Bob Shuman, COO of OceanGate, said: “Sonardyne’s systems allowed our organisation to carry out an extremely successful series of crewed submersible dives.

“They observed all three areas of the wreck (bow, stern, and the debris field), captured many hours of high-definition video and several hundred 4K still images, and shared the experience with audiences around the world.

“The Ranger 2 USBL and AvTrak 6 systems reliably provided crucial comms and tracking data for each dive throughout the expedition.”

OceanGate has planned annual return trips to the Titanic wreck since its initial 2021 project, with another scheduled for this summer.