Expedition Deep Ocean by Josh Young

Author:Josh Young
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2020-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

On December 21, the Richards Group issued a press release cleared by Atlantic on the record-breaking dive. The news received a smattering of online coverage from several outlets, including the “For the Win” section of USA Today, businessinsider.com, the Guardian’s (UK) website, lifescience.com, and a few others. A detailed story appeared the same day on Popular Science’s website, written by Josh Dean, who had been on the ship for the dive. But by no means was the dive big news.

Vescovo, who wasn’t doing the dives for press attention, was not surprised by the tepid response and was fine with the coverage. “Look, I get it,” he said. “People hear about this and say, ‘That’s neat, but how does it really affect me?’ We are looking to open some doors of exploration, and we have opened one.”

What also became clear as the saga over the restriction of the release of information began to involve lawyers in the ensuing days and weeks was that the expedition team was at its best when it was on the ship sharing a myopic vision to achieve a common goal. The Pressure Drop was the team’s bubble, a floating village where men and women at the top of their professions had come together for something they believed in and cared about. It was a haven where little else existed beyond achieving the goals of the mission.

On each of the four trips at sea to date, most of the conversations on the ship centered on the object of everyone’s affection, frustration, and possibility, the Limiting Factor, and what the sub had done, what it needed to do, and how to work in harmony to make its dives successful. Even the problems plaguing the sub during the Puerto Rico dives that threatened to upend the expedition—and Vescovo’s somewhat impetuous threat to pull the plug altogether—were worked through by everyone coming together and addressing the problems at hand.

Off the ship, however, every logistical complication and internecine squabble seemed to magnify. Certainly, there had been many—the Limiting Factor being unprepared for sea trials, the questionable scheduling of the failed Titanic dives, the sub being forced to undergo a near-total refit, the underwhelming media launch day, the turmoil over the installation of the sonar, and now the threat of legal action from Atlantic Productions. But when everyone stepped back and reflected on how far things had come and what the journey meant thus far, the tone of the discourse turned positive and productive.

This was evident two days after the press release was issued. After returning home and resting up, Lahey sat down and typed up a lengthy email to Vescovo on December 23 to wish him a Merry Christmas and to articulate what the Atlantic Ocean dive had meant to him and his team. In the email, he didn’t even mention the debate over media issues that was already in the hands of the lawyers.

“This most recent deployment was among the most difficult of my life,” Lahey wrote. “We had a seemingly endless number of issues, but the team held fast and we made it happen in the end.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.