Dive at Lusitania wreck could solve 93-year mystery behind sinking

THE mystery surrounding the sinking of the Lusitania 93 years ago could be solved this week.

Experts will this morning begin a week-long project to film and photograph in detail for the first time the remains of one of the country’s best-known wrecks, which lies in 300 feet of water 25 nautical miles south of the Old Head of Kinsale.

The wreck’s owner, American millionaire Gregg Bemis, 80, said he hopes the pictures will prove what he has always suspected — that the liner was secretly carrying ammunition to Britain.

He sailed from Kinsale yesterday to oversee the mission from the survey vessel MV Odyssey Explorer.

As it dropped anchor over the wreck site last night, Bemis said he is very excited about the latest phase of his Lusitania project — which he has been pursuing for four decades.

“Every time we make progress on this is exciting. I hope people following this story wish us luck,” he said.

Weather-permitting, the team from Florida-based Odyssey Marine Exploration (OME) will send a high-tech remotely operated submarine called Zeus 11 down to the wreck site this morning on the first of many planned dives.

Equipped with specialist underwater lights, and bristling with high-definition video recorders and cameras, Zeus will produce the first high-resolution pictures of the historic vessel.

“We hope to get as many good pictures of the wreck as possible,” Bemis said.

“This is a very professional operation. I will spend the week here on the ship offering whatever help I can.”

The RMS Lusitania was steaming off Cork on May 7, 1915, en route from New York to Liverpool when it was hit by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat.

The explosion triggered a violent and mystery secondary explosion which ripped its hull apart and sped its sinking. That explosion was so violent, it shook shelves in homes in Kinsale.

The ship sank in less than 18 minutes, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 people on board, including 39 children under two.

Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, said in 1993 he believed dust in the ship’s coal bunkers thrown into the air by the torpedo impact would have ignited causing the second explosion.

But Bemis has always believed the ship’s secret ammunitions cargo caused the second explosion.

“I want to find out where the second explosion took place and why,” he said.

“I believe there were explosives on board. I can tell the whole world that, but they’re not going to believe me until we get down there and get proof.”

The data collected will be examined over the next six months and will be used to measure the liner’s deterioration and to form a plan for a forensic examination of the ship. The Department of the Environment’s Underwater Archaeology Unit will join the team to ensure work is carried out in a non-invasive manner.