THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 9, 1994 TAG: 9406090457
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOSEPH P. COSCO, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940609 LENGTH: NORFOLK
RMS Titanic Inc. won exclusive ownership of the sunken luxury liner Tuesday, exactly one year after the company arrived at the wreck site for an expedition that would retrieve 800 artifacts.
{REST} ``The Titanic can now go from the courtroom to the classroom,'' said George Tulloch, chairman of New York-based RMS Titanic, which also recovered 1,800 artifacts from the wreck in 1987. ``The Titanic's future, as well as its present, is in education.''
More than 150 of the artifacts will go on public display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, beginning Oct. 4. The exhibit will remain in Greenwich for six months before embarking on a world tour that will include Norfolk, probably in 1996.
``One day we'll be able to call you and tell you when we'll be opening in Norfolk,'' RMS Titanic president Arnie Geller said in a telephone interview Wednesday. ``That's a promise.''
Geller and Tulloch said they both have fond memories of Norfolk, where they battled for the Titanic and temporarily stored the 800 artifacts that were recovered in June 1993. Those artifacts, as well as the objects recovered in 1987, were sent to France for restoration.
Geller said a permanent home for all the artifacts, now valued at more than $100 million, will probably be found in New York. He said the group is making arrangements for another salvage expedition, ``which we hope will be this summer.''
The Titanic, a British luxury liner, was making its maiden voyage from England and France to New York when it hit an iceberg and sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, killing more than 1,500 passengers and crew members. The wreck, which lies 2 1/2 miles below the North Atlantic about 400 miles south of Newfoundland, was discovered in 1985.
RMS Titanic (then known as Titanic Ventures) staked its claim to the ship with the first successful salvage expedition two years later.
In 1992, a rival salvage group led by Texas wildcatter Jack Grimm petitioned the Norfolk court for exclusive rights. The group, Marex-Titanic of Memphis, Tenn., argued that RMS Titanic had given up its claim by not returning to the site for five years.
Marex-Titanic had a salvage ship at the wreck site in the summer of 1992 but had to turn back when U.S. District Judge J. Calvitt Clarke Jr. of Norfolk gave sole salvage rights to RMS Titanic.
Marex-Titanic appealed the decision, and in August a federal appeals court reversed Clarke's ruling on procedural grounds. Marex-Titanic did not renew its claim, but a British insurance company filed a claim.
On Tuesday, Clarke dismissed that claim by the Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association.
``After all the years of controversy surrounding the legal rights to this most famous of all ships, the federal court confirmed that we may proceed with our research and recovery program,'' Geller said. ``This decision allows the company to continue to preserve the Titanic's artifacts and present them with dignity to students of future generations.''
by CNB