Speaker 2 (00:12) Welcome to the Anglotopia Podcast where we explore British travel, history, and culture. Many people don't know that the famous Titanic had two sister ships, one of which sank tragically as well during World War I. This week I'm joined by Simon Mills, deep sea explorer, maritime historian, and the man who quite literally owns a piece of history, the wreck of the HMHS Britannic, Titanic's larger and lesser known sister ship. His new book, Inside the Britannic, which you can see here, uncovering the wreck of the Titanic sister ship is the result of nearly three decades of diving research and discovery. More than just a technical analysis, it's a visually rich forensic journey into a ship that has rested on the Aegean Sea since 1916. Today, we'll talk about what it means to own a shipwreck, why Britannic still matters, and the extraordinary work that went into this definitive account. Welcome, Simon. Speaker 1 (01:03) Thank you very much, Thomas. Speaker 2 (01:05) So, please give us some background on the Britannic. What's the story of Titanic's mostly forgotten sister ship? Speaker 1 (01:12) Well, I always get little bit frustrated with this mostly forgotten or forgotten sister or whatever. Titanic has a big place in history, obviously, because of what happened. know, 1500 people died on a shipwreck, which is totally unique. Britannic was really supposed to be the answer to all the things that went wrong on the Titanic. Titanic was never meant to be a ⁓ lone ship on her own. She wasn't this sort of single ship. She was actually one of three, the Olympic, the Titanic and the Britannic. In fact, many ways, Titanic, when she went into service, it was not big news at all because Olympic had been in service almost a year before the Titanic arrived. It's only after the Titanic sank that she became the big headline news. Britannic was really the third ship in the class. They'd already started to build her when the Titanic left Belfast. And of course, she had to be made even more unsinkable to restore public confidence in the White Star Line and basically get people back in White Star Line ships again. So Britannic was supposed to be the answer to all the things that went wrong inside the Titanic. Speaker 2 (02:14) Interesting. So give us some background here. What first drew you to the Britannic and how did your interest in maritime history start? Speaker 1 (02:23) I've always been a bit of a maritime history buff, but I never really set out to buy the Britannic or get too heavily involved in the story. What basically happened was by profession, I am or was a working film technician in the camera department in the UK film industry, mostly TV, drama or feature films. But the great thing about being in a camera department is that you're either incredibly busy or doing nothing. There's an awful lot of unemployment between jobs. You never finish on one job on a Friday and start one on Monday. Sometimes you've got several weeks between jobs, sometimes even months, you never know. So what you have to do, you have to have a second string to your bow. And one of the things I used to do was documentary research. And I was working on lots of documentaries in the mid 80s. And of course, that's when Bob Ballard found the wreck of the Titanic. So all of a sudden, there were loads of documentaries being made on the Titanic. mean, dozens, I've lost count of how many there probably were. And I was doing all the research on the Titanic, but unlike the other programs, I also found myself researching the other two ships. So I somehow became the expert on the Olympic and the Britannic. And because of that, I had an awful lot of information, which I thought, well, what am I going to do with it? So in the end, I just started to publish it. And gradually, bit by bit, I became the go-to person on the other two ships. Not so much. Titanic. I've never regarded myself as a Titanic expert or part of the Titanic fraternity, shall we say. But I'm a fairly small, large fish in a reasonably small pond when it comes to the Britannic and the Olympic and I feel happier there. Speaker 2 (04:02) I feel like I'm gonna have to have you on the podcast again to talk about your film and TV work in the UK film industry but beside that so when So you've worked on major film sets like harry potter and james bond. How did your work In film connect to your deep sea exploration. How did that kind of inform it? Speaker 1 (04:20) As far as the feature films were concerned, it didn't really connect me at all. I suppose the closest I came to archaeology was working with Indiana Jones, know, the old famous saying, it's a X never ever marks the spot and how true that was. But as far as feature films are concerned, it had no real connection at all with what eventually happened to me on the Britannic. As I said, it was really the downtime when I was researching the documentary, because I was actually unemployed. That's somehow where I went off in that particular direction. And gradually I became the go-to person for the Britannic. I never set out to investigate the wreck. I never set out to buy the wreck. It's just one thing led to another. And the next thing I knew, I had this piece of paper saying, hey, guess what? You own the Britannic. Speaker 2 (05:01) Yeah, we're gonna get to that. I want to hear that story. ⁓ when did you first encounter the wreck of the Britannic? When did you first dive to it? What was that like? Speaker 1 (05:11) My first experience on the Britannic was in 1995. In 92, I published the first book on the Britannic, nothing too detailed, about 30,000 words, give or take. And so Bob Ballard, who found Titanic in 1985, for the 10th anniversary, he thought, I know, I'll go to Greece and sort of investigate the wreck of the Britannic. So I suddenly found a phone call from a friend of mine, Kirk Wolfinger, a documentary producer in America. saying, you've done the book on the Britannic, we'd like you to be one of our historical advisors. So I found myself actually as part of Bob Ballard's team in 1985, ⁓ sorry, in 1995, sorry, when he decided to go and investigate the actual wreck of the Britannic itself. But like I said, it was really, he was there because it was the 10th anniversary of finding the Titanic and he wanted somewhere appropriate. And that's how it happened. One of the few occasions where a camera technician was regarded as essential personnel for a job, which is rather nice. Yeah. Speaker 2 (06:08) So, not to get into the technical weeds a little bit, but can you tell us how was the Britannic different than Titanic? What made it more unsinkable? What made it special? What did they learn from Titanic and incorporate into the Britannic? Speaker 1 (06:27) Well, it may seem strange to say it, but believe it or not, the Titanic was actually quite a safe ship. It was just the freak nature of the damage which basically sank the Titanic, you know, the gash or the stabs of holes along about maybe 250, 300 feet of the hull's length. So it was really the freak nature of the damage that got the Titanic, not the fact that she was a faulty design. But nevertheless, it happened once, so it could happen again. So the Titanic had to be made even safer. So they gave her a double skin, they gave her higher water type bulkheads. And generally speaking, they thought that the damage that sank the Titanic would not be enough to sink the Britannic. She could float with her four to six compartments flooded, whereas Titanic could only float with her four compartments flooded. So that's basically what made Britannic the much safer ship. Now, of course, you also have to sort of make it look safer. So what Britannic had, which Titanic did not have also, was lots more lifeboats, basically. There was a lifeboat for everybody on the ship. So you not only sort of have a much safer vessel, but you restore public confidence just by seeing the lifeboats there. You know you've got on a safe ship. Speaker 2 (07:31) So, to help fill in the historical detail here, the Britannic never actually had passengers, correct? Because it went online during World War I, correct? Speaker 1 (07:42) That's correct, yeah, she was about the same size as Titanic in terms of capacity, but Britannic was incomplete when the war broke out. She spent the first part of the year laid up in Belfast doing absolutely nothing. It wasn't until November of 1915 that she was finally called out for service and she went into service as a hostile ship in 1915 December. But apart from that, Britannic never actually made a single commercial voyage for the White Star Line. So, know, Olympic did 24 years of service, the Titanic did four and a half days of service. and the Britannic ended up doing six voyages over an 11-month period in service with the Admiralty. Speaker 2 (08:16) And then what happened to it? Now it sank, but it wasn't, it was sunk by, was a German U-boats. Speaker 1 (08:22) It was German U-boats, yeah, but it wasn't a torpedo. For many, many years we've had this controversy about was it torpedoed or did it hit a mine? Now, of course, being a hospital ship, Britannic was in theory immune to being attacked by a torpedo. She wasn't immune from being attacked at all. I mean, when you put any ship into a war zone, the nation state accepts you're taking risks. So even though Britannic was in theory invulnerable to attack by a U-boat, deliberate attack anyway, torpedo. She could still run into a mine or hit another warship, know, have the normal collisions. So you accept a degree of risk whenever you put even a hospital ship into a war zone. Britannica, course, was not torpedoed. She hit a mine. We actually found the minefield in 2003 on a National Geographic documentary. And we went back and, well, that's just a sonar. We found the minefield on sonar. But we'd actually image it until 2008, about five years later. We went back and sort of actually got a picture of the mine fragment on the seabed. there's no doubt whatsoever the Britannic was sunk by a mine rather than the torpedo. So it's one conspiracy theory completely and utterly lance there. People love to believe it was a torpedo but it wasn't. Speaker 2 (09:32) So now, ⁓ was there a huge loss of life when the Britannics sank, or were they able to use the safety features to get off the ship? ⁓ Speaker 1 (09:40) There wasn't a huge loss of life actually, they were very lucky on the Britannic. And you have to bear in mind the Britannic sank in 55 minutes, which is three times faster than the Titanic went down. Because the scale of the damage was much, much larger. But actually no, Britannic was on her way out to the island of Madros. They were picking up wounded and invalid soldiers from the various campaigns in the Eastern Mediterranean. But luckily, very fortunately, Britannic was on the way out and therefore she was empty. So on board you had little over a thousand crew and medical staff, but there were no patients on board. Now, if you think about it, had it happened on the way back and you had a full ship, a ship full of patients, the death toll could have been humongous, huge. So in terms of timing, it couldn't have happened at a better time. I mean, it wasn't a good thing for the ship to sink by any stretch of the imagination, but it was, at least it was on the way out rather than the way back. Speaker 2 (10:30) So now getting to the fact that you own the shipwreck, how does one come about to own a shipwreck, especially one like the Britannic? What steps are involved in buying a shipwreck? Speaker 1 (10:43) It's actually not as complicated as you think. mean, everything in the world has got an owner. Doesn't matter where it is. It could be top of the mountain or down at the bottom of the sea. When a ship sinks, ⁓ it's normally paid off by the insurance company. So believe it or not, the insurance company who paid off the White Star Line would actually own the wreck on the seabed. Now, in this particular case, it was the British Airborne Sea who paid off the White Star Line because she was sunk because of a ⁓ war risk. So to all intents and purposes, the British government actually owned the wreck of the Britannic. And some years ago, a gentleman called Mark Bamford, his family owns a JCB company, they are building plant manufacturers, he ⁓ collected shipwrecks, shall we say, one of his hobbies. And he made an offer to the British government saying, I will buy the wreck of the Britannic for you. Now, any insurer be it British government or commercial inshore, go, someone will pay me X thousand pounds for the wreck of the Britannic. Must be an idiot. Yeah, we'll take his money. So they will take the money, a very small amount of money in the overall scheme of things. But that's exactly how you do it. You just go to the insurance company who paid off on the actual wreck itself. Now in Greek territorial waters, it's slightly complicated because any commercial shipwrecks normally become the property of the Greek government after about three months on the Greek seabed. But you have what they call sovereign immunity, which is warships always belong to the country that pay for them. So an American warship, no matter where it sinks in the world, will always belong to the American government. And Britannic was paid off by the British government and sunk during the war on war service. So ultimately, the British government became the owners to the wreck of the Britannic and they transferred their title in 1977, I believe it was. I picked it up in 1996. So that's how it works, basically. As long as you've got a paper trail, then you can put and take it right back to the British government. There's absolutely no complications whatsoever. Speaker 2 (12:37) So now the next question is, what does ownership of the wreck allow you to do? What are the limitations imposed by the Greek authorities or UNESCO or whatever authorities you have to deal with? Speaker 1 (12:49) UNESCO doesn't really come into it that much. UNESCO really covers more international waters. So because Bratallich is about three miles from the island of Kya, it kind of doesn't really sort of take into account the provisions of UNESCO underwater cultural heritage protocols. But having said that, the Greeks are very, very strict on their antiquities. They take it very seriously. The Ministry of Culture in Greece is probably one of the most powerful ministries that there is. So just because I own the record of the Britannic doesn't mean to say I could just rock up with my bucket and say, I want to go down there and tear this off and I want that on my mantelpiece. Anything over 50 years old automatically comes under the jurisdiction of the effort of marine antiquities. That's part of Ministry of Culture. You could argue that's a bit excessive, everything over 50 years old, but nevertheless, that's Greek law. So yes, I have certain rights which the Greek government cannot obstruct. But at the same time, I'm working in their territorial waters. So I've got to work according to their legislation, make sure that if I turn up with a properly worked out archaeological projects, we can make things work. But I can't just turn up there and just sort of go down and bring up a bell or anything like that. I have to sort of have a properly worked out plan and also have it costed to make sure that they're not sort of left holding the baby as far as cost are concerned. They won't pay for anything. I have to sort of... make sure the funds are in place before we do any work. That's how it works. Speaker 2 (14:19) Interesting. So how many times have you dived to the wreck and how has the site changed over time? Speaker 1 (14:26) I think me, I've probably done about three dives to the wreck itself. think about three, I can't remember. No, four, this is four, But I have to bear in mind that I'm not a technical diver. It's 400 feet down. So in terms of a man dive down there, I can't do it. It requires special mixes of gas, rebreather, special equipment. I'm not trained to do that. All my dives to the Britannica have been inside submersibles. which is why it's much more comfortable, much easier, no problem at all. So I've never really had any difficulties in terms of actually getting down to the Britannical, getting back up. Whereas if you're a technical diver, you know, it's very easy getting down to the wreck, but at 114 meters, you're working at what, 12, 13 atmospheres. So getting back to the surface takes much, much longer. I think it's about, for about a 35 minute dive on the wreck, you're probably decompressing for about three and a half to four hours in the water. gradually working your way back up to the surface. Now I'm too old for that. I haven't got time to sort of get involved in that kind of thing. So I leave that to the divers who know what they're doing. I just give them my list of where what I need and where I need them to go. And nine times out of 10, they make to tick the box for me. Speaker 2 (15:38) So, thinking of the Britannic and the greater sweep of history, what do you think is most misunderstood about it compared to the famous sistership? Speaker 1 (15:46) I don't think there's anything misunderstood about the Britannic. I suppose the most frustrating thing is that because she is Titanic's sister ship, it was overshadowed by the Titanic. Titanic is one of those ships that just sort of absorbs people, it takes over. Britannic is like any other shipwreck, it's got its own story to tell. There are hundreds of thousands of shipwrecks in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, there must be tens of thousands. They've all got a story to tell. And the trick is to make sure that when you're trying to tell that story and work out what happened on that ship, you don't let other things sideline you and take you off on a tangent. It's all too easy when you're talking about Britannics and say, ⁓ was that the same on the Titanic? And it really annoys me, actually, when people sort of say that. mean, because there's lots of interest in the Titanic. I understand that. That's not a problem for me. But I do think that sometimes it has a tendency to take over. And so what I try to make sure that we do is we don't concentrate too much on the Titanic. Yes, it's a part of the story. Yes, it's a very important part of the story. But at the end of the day, we're out there telling Britannic story, not Titanic story. Speaker 2 (16:53) Speaking of Britannic story, now there are actually bits of Britannic still in existence, not under the water. ⁓ Can you tell us more about that? Isn't it like a hotel or something I was reading in the book? Speaker 1 (17:07) ⁓ Not quite. There's ⁓ the White Swan Hotel in Anick, which is in Northern England, near Newcastle. That's got the lounge from the Olympic, the wooden panelling from the Olympic. There was a house in Ireland a few years ago which had a lot of panelling from the Britannic and, well, the Grand Stake case, the lounge and also the second class library. But that was installed in a private house, panelling in a private house. It was all sold off after the war. There is this legend that for some reason, when the Britannic was requisitioned for military service, all the panelling was taken out. It's actually not true. It's just that the panelling that was sold off after the war was never actually installed, because don't forget, Britannic was actually incomplete. So a lot of the panelling which would have been in the Britannic when she sank, oddly enough, wasn't there because she was incomplete. So this house in just outside Dublin it was. They found this paddling with all the numbers on the back 433, that means Britannic, and it sold for a very nice amount of money because of the Titanic link. The paddling was very nice, don't get me wrong, but because Britannic was Titanic's sister ship, the value of that paddling was about 100,000 euros. It was a considerable amount of money. So yes, there are bits and pieces of the Britannic all over the place, but this is all stuff that was never actually on the ship itself. It was stuff they never had time to install before she was called up. Whereas Olympic, She was scrapped in 1935 up in Jarrow, again, near Newcastle. So you find wooden panelling all over the place in the northeast of England, basically. It's not uncommon at all to find Olympic artefacts in hotel or in a private house, bits of Mauritania in private studios. When these ships were broken up after the First World War in the 1930s, the panelling was all recycled and you'd be surprised how much panelling there is around the UK. Speaker 2 (19:02) Interesting and so on your dives, what have you discovered inside the wreck that most that surprised you the most? Speaker 1 (19:09) I think for me the key thing was the survey of the watertight doors. We always knew that some of the watertight doors were open, but the crucial thing about Britannic, we spoke about the six watertight bulkheads. The four to six compartments, if they flooded, Britannic should still have floated, and yet she didn't. And what surprised me as we were going deeper and deeper down the staircase into the Turkish bath, is that we're finding watertight doors open that should have been closed. The key sixth compartment when we saw that watertight door open on down on F deck, it was opened by about that much, about six or seven inches. That's what it was. It basically meant this crucial watertight bulkhead, which should in theory have saved the Britannic. And this is a door, by the way, we know it was closed on the Titanic. There is testimony to say that door was definitely closed on the Titanic. So although Britannic had these extra safety features, the higher bulkheads, the double skin, it all means nothing if you can't close the watertight doors. And in many ways, because that door was open, you could argue that the Titanic was less well protected from the flooding than the Titanic. Speaker 2 (20:15) So ⁓ how did the recent COVID-19 pandemic affect your ability to continue to explore and document the wreck? Speaker 1 (20:23) was disaster. I mean, there's nothing we could do. We were all set to sort of start. We've been doing on and off internal surveys since about 2003, but nothing really detailed. You know, a few targets here and there. We had this plan to start a massive sort of internal survey of the wreck itself. And we would have started around about 2020. But along comes COVID and everything closes down. No one can fly anywhere. In fact, my publisher was saying to me that the book, which we were going to do, know... this one, the book had to go on hold. We couldn't do it. It wasn't just my book, though. mean, they were having lots of problems with other books. The travellers couldn't go and get their photograph, particularly with travelogues. So I found myself writing another book for them to get us through Covid. So it was a handy way of getting through a lockdown, shall we say. But the point is, no, we lost about two or three years on the Britannic because of Covid. We didn't really sort of start getting up and running, properly up and running till 2021. And even then it was touch and go about whether or not we actually went or not. And so we put it off until 2022. But we got a nice grant from the Explorers Club and Discovery Channel. So we thought we can't not go. We have to go. So that's when we really managed to finally make a start on it, 2021. But we'd lost about two years because of COVID. And that's just the way it goes. It wasn't just us, it was everybody. was a strange time. Speaker 2 (21:45) It really was. So ⁓ your book is described from the description as forensic, but also highly visual. Can you talk about some of the new schematics and photographs and digital reconstructions that are featured? I read it this weekend and it's quite a beautiful book. Speaker 1 (22:02) Oh, thank you. It's interesting. I mean, I combine it with several other books I've done before. mean, up until 2016, there was a book called Exploring the Britannic, which basically covers what we did up until then. But there's only a sort of minimal stuff on the interior. Taking a forensic approach, you've got to work out, you know, it's not a case of just going in there and taking photographs or saying, aren't these pretty photographs? I mean, they are, they're lovely. The dive team have done a wonderful job for me, you know, I couldn't ask for more commitment or better results. They've been absolutely brilliant. But at the end of the day, we were down on the Britannic with a purpose. That was to find out what really happened inside there. Why did she sink? Anyone can go down with a camera and take pictures, but you're not allowed to dive inside the Britannic. We have an agreement with the Greek government basically that as far as diving on a wreck is concerned, recreational divers, not a problem, provided they don't touch the wreck or disturb it or go inside. The only person who's got permit to go inside is me, basically. And that's because of my rather unique legal position, shall we say, with the ownership documents. But it still doesn't mean that I go in just because I want to. I have to have a sort of proper plan to go in there and work out why I want to go in there. So as I said, we're not just going around and sort of photographing, you know, the galley, the first class galley. It's interesting. It's certainly interesting. The Titanic world loves the information that we're coming back with. But at the end of the day, we're there with a very, clear purpose, and that is to sort of work out one, why the ship sank, and two, what is the internal condition because is she going to fall apart? Is she going to start to fall apart? So we're also analyzing how strong the wreck is, how much longer she's got before the inevitable collapse happens. And it will happen one day. You know, she's a steel ship wreck in a saltwater environment. So nothing lasts forever in those conditions. She will one day collapse. So we're trying to get as much information about the interior of the Britannic before that collapse happens. Speaker 2 (23:56) Are you allowed to bring up artifacts from the wreck or do you have to leave everything in place? Speaker 1 (24:00) Up until this year, we were just doing ⁓ filming, we weren't removing anything from the wreck site. We've now got permission to start making limited retrievals for conservation and public display. But generally speaking, ⁓ no, I leave everything where it is, you know, that way people can't say to me, it's unfair that you got this, the Britannic and we haven't. The answer is I haven't got anything from the Britannic. So whenever a diver removes something from the wreck, as far as I'm concerned, if the Greek government find out about it, they will give them a good kicking and I will or hold their coat while they do it. We are now starting to talk about selected retrievals for public display. And we made some small retrievals, small scale retrievals in May, just gone. It will go on display hopefully in Belfast and certainly in Piraeus when the new machine opens next year. So yes, ⁓ we have now opened the Pandora's box. We've now started to make the first retrievals. But as I said, they're limited, they're controlled. We won't go down there and just sort of grab everything we see and then work out what to do with it later. We have to sort of work out why certain items are worth retrieving and why others should be left where they are. It's a tricky conversation sometimes. And like I said, the Greeks take their antiquities very, very seriously. But their new Marine Archaeology Museum opens next year in Piraeus. And Britannic will now be part of it. There are now a number of artifacts to go on display in Piraeus. There could be more. I'd like to get some over to Belfast for display there, maybe a few travelling exhibits, who knows. But yes, we are now doing retrievals, albeit very controlled. Speaker 2 (25:39) So what, what, cause you've written a couple books about the Britannic, so what part of the new book are you most most proud of? Speaker 1 (25:46) think is what the dive team have pulled off, to be honest with you. I mean, it's very easy for me to sort of sit down and say, I need photographs of this, I want to see where this is. When I give the list of targets to the dive team leader, I've got a bit of diving experience, not much, I used to do bit of recreational scuba diving. I'm long out of practice now, haven't been in the water for many, years diving anyway. But I like to think that although I've got this nice big plan, I've drawn lines here, yeah, go down there. It looks nice, looks great on a big plan. When you get inside the wreck, it's all very, different. There are collapsed bits here, there are holes there we wish you never expected. There are doorways that you never expected. I never really know for sure where I'm sending them till they actually get back and I see the footage. I've got a good idea in my mind of where they're going. But at the end of the day, it's what the dive team... pull off, whenever I give them targets of where to go and what to look for and what to film, ⁓ they have always, always come back with what I require, but not always by going the route that I recommend. So that's the great thing about sort of exploring the Britannic is that there are quite a few surprises in store for me as well. And I'm supposed to be the expert. But really, when they come back to the service, I sort of start going through the film. I suppose the strange thing about it is that I keep changing my goals. In 2003, we went into the Ford Fireman's tunnel. The whole idea was to swim down there to get to the rest of you all leading to the boiler rooms to find out were the watertight doors open. Well, Richie Stevenson swims down there about 50 feet, give or take, gets there, and he gets the images of the watertight doors. It's all there and I think I agree. Tick the box. Except you start looking in the boiler room and you see that the four boilers are still intact, still completely intact and in position. And suddenly you're thinking, we can get between those pointers, maybe get to the next door. So your goals are constantly changing. Every time you tick the box and make one goal, you think, hang on, we can go down there, see what's down there. So that's it. That's it. Basically, it's trying to be flexible. know, getting the targets that you, that you want, albeit safely, make sure that the divers, I always say to the divers, listen, guys, whatever you do, if I give you a target which you think is too dangerous or optimistic. You have every right to just turn around and say, forget it, Millsie, I'm not going down there. It's not a problem. But they always have done and I must admit, I'm pretty proud of the team. We have got some great stuff. You've seen the book, you've seen the illustrations in the book. All the questions have been answered so far. Are there other questions? Almost certainly. Speaker 2 (28:25) So what is the legacy you hope that this book in your work with Britannic will have for future historians and explorers? Speaker 1 (28:31) That's a good question. Still working on the legacy bit, I think is the best way to describe it, because Britannic is now still very much an ongoing project. When we started, well, when I started on it in early 2000s, I mean, I was involved in sort of recreational dives before then, but I wasn't really present on site. I've only been going into this since about 2003. But I think what I want to is I want to hand over going concern, you know, when we started on Britannic in 2003, when I was first on Kia. no one the island really knew about the wreck. There's no great interest whatsoever. They had the citizenship of the Titanic three miles out in the Kier Channel or whatever. There was a vague, vague recollection of Clou Stowe being there in 1976, but that was about it. There was no real knowledge about the Britannic, no real interest in the Britannic, if I'm brutally honest. But I think over the years, we've gradually changed that perception. Everyone on the island knows it's there now. There's a of diving that goes on, recreational diving. It's sort of a... tourists being brought in because of it. I'm not really involved in the diving side of things. I'm more involved in the exploration of the actual wreck site. And as I said, you know, we are now reaching the point where we are beginning to bring up artifacts for public display education. So I suppose that will be my legacy, I guess, that we turn Britannic into something tangible, rather than some forgotten pile of steel three miles out into the Kier Channel. Speaker 2 (29:53) So is there more left to uncover on Britannic? Do feel the story is complete or do you feel like there's a lot more to discover? Speaker 1 (30:00) Well, if you think about it, Britannica is just under 900 feet long. And we've really, there's a lot more to find, I think. I mean, we've been to the more interesting sort of parts of the wreck, you know, the watertight doors, we've been into the dining room, we've been into the lounges, we've been to lots of the public spaces, but there's lots of areas we have not yet been into. We've only done the four two boiler rooms, there's four boiler rooms still to examine. We've been into the engine rooms, both engine compartments, but we've not yet gone to the dynamos. So yes, there's a lot, lot more still to do. I think we've answered the important questions. You know, why does she sink? You know, I think the key thing for me is in 2023, when we found that open watertight door. For me, that was stunning. Because, you know, I told the divers, as you go into the into the Turkish bath cooling room, as a watertight door there, please get an image of it for me. Nothing special, I was expecting to see the watertight door. What I was not expecting was to see it open. So what I like about it is the way I think we have actually sort of reworked the dynamic of what happened on the Britannic the day that she sank. Everyone thinks, oh, she sank because she healed over to Stamford and all the water got in through the open portholes. That's part of the story. But we are now filling in the other gaps in the story. So saying, hang on, these watertight doors here are completely open. This one here is partially open. So therefore, all of a sudden your flooding analysis is changing completely. So it's not just a case of botanic rolling over to starboard and the water getting in through the portholes, although that was a factor, undeniably. But the mere fact that we are finding open watertight doors in areas we expect them to be closed, as I said, it rewrites the dynamic of the sinking. So yes, we're changing the history of which, and we are bringing artifacts up for conservation and display. I'm delighted. So yeah, I think we have changed things. Speaker 2 (31:48) So book aside, is there going to be any documentary, TV documentaries or films about the Britannic coming along the line or have there been? I forget my ignorance. should have looked before I asked questions. Speaker 1 (32:00) I'd hope so. I mean, we are looking for a document, a broadcaster to sort of take on the documentary side of things. It's been a little bit difficult because document is not a sort of flash with cash as they used to be, shall we say. But also there's this perception in America, sadly, that's a well, it's not American enough. I think they're missing the trick slightly. I'm not too concerned about it because I think sooner or later it will go full circle. Because the point is, you know, People like their Titanic documentaries and say what you like. What we've got inside the Britannic, nobody else can get. You know, we have got unique footage inside that wreck. We can actually fill in spaces on the Titanic that no longer exists. You look at the Titanic, she's in two pieces. The entire midsection is completely gone. The stern is completely collapsed. The bow section, forward half of the ship is still reasonably intact and reasonably recognizable, although disintegrating. But strictly speaking, half of know, as soon as you get move after the second final on the Britannic, you're into areas of the Titanic which have not been seen and don't exist anymore. So we can actually sort of recreate parts of the Titanic just by going into the Britannic. So yes, there's a definite link. I see it's coming together sooner or later. I'm not going to push it. They'll get there sooner or later, people will realize, hang on, we've got to go to the Britannic and use this footage for our next Titanic documentary. And I will just buy my time and wait because I know that sooner or later they will come. Speaker 2 (33:26) Well, any TV producer is listening to this podcast. You heard the man. He's got... Well, the joke is if you find that there was one American on that ship, then suddenly the American documentary companies will be interested. Speaker 1 (33:30) Yeah, great stuff. Could be yeah, I haven't thought about that, but I'll take it on. But no as far as I'm aware, unfortunately they weren't. Speaker 2 (33:45) Uh, well, just looking for my last question. Are there other wrecks you want to explore or is the Britannic enough for you? Speaker 1 (33:52) Oh, I don't think so. think metallic enough for me. It's been 20 years of work, if I'm honest with you, over 25 years of work. It's been a remarkable journey. I couldn't afford to put the amount of time and money into another wreck that I've put into this one. It's been a lot of efforts. I find any shipwreck is interesting, actually. I I've dived on several shipwrecks in the Red Sea, all quite nice. I said, they've all got a story to tell. They're all very, very atmospheric places. You know, almost every divers, some of the places they could actually go into and get a feel for what it used to be like on the ship before it sank. mean, one of the divers was saying to me on the Britannic, when they were swimming down Scotland Road to get into the, as a working passage from one end of the ship to the other virtually. And he said, for the first time ever, I felt the presence of people. You know, it's easy to go swimming on a ship wreck as well. So all look as a, as a tire over there, all look as a gun over there. you sometimes miss the human element of what was actually going on and the people actually in the ship itself. And he said one day, for the first time swimming along that working passage, I sensed people being there. ⁓ was a rather curious thing for him to say, but I knew exactly where he was coming from. Yeah, so yeah, that's basically it. I think every ship has got a story, every shipwreck has got a story to tell, but it can't be me telling them all. I've done so much work on this one. I could not possibly. do that on another rig, I don't think. Speaker 2 (35:15) Well, owning a shipwreck has to be one of the coolest side hustles I've come across in all my years. Well, thank you, Simon. You have given us a rare and vivid glimpse beneath the surface, not just of the Aegean Sea, but of the past. Inside the Britannic isn't just a book about a shipwreck. It's about curiosity, determination, and the preservation of memory. You can order this beautiful book now from booksellers everywhere. The link will be in the show notes. And Simon, thank you so much for taking us on this journey to the shipwreck which you've owned, the Britannic. Speaker 1 (35:20) Yeah, okay. You're very welcome, no problem at all.