Divers are preparing to record the first video footage of the wreck of RMS Carpathia, which rescued more than 700 survivors from the Titanic in 1912. The vessel was herself sunk off the Cornish coast in a German torpedo attack six years later.
Dive organiser Jeff Cornish said the team of volunteers was also aiming to collect artefacts for an exhibition about the Titanic in London next year.
The ship lies 500ft (150m) underwater, 300 miles off south-west England.
The ship picked up 705 survivors as the Titanic went down in 1912 after hitting an iceberg.
It is believed that without the Carpathia and her skipper, Captain Arthur Rostron, there would have been no survivors from the Titanic.
Ship’s bell
Mr Cornish said the divers were hoping to recover a number of key items from the ship.
“The ship’s bell is going to be a prize possession which we would like to recover,” he said.
“(And) what’s called a ‘loving cup’ was given by survivors of the Titanic to Captain Rostron for saving them.
“What’s present on the bridge, cutlery, plates with the Cunard insignia on it – those sorts of things that I think people will be interested in looking at in the exhibition.”
The wreck of the 13,000-tonne Cunard liner was discovered in 1999.
The passenger steamship had been built at the Swan Hunter yard in Newcastle and was launched in August 1902.
It was sailing east from New York on the night of Sunday 14 April, 1912, when it received the Titanic’s distress signal.
Captain Rostron set a course at maximum speed to reach the Titanic’s last known position, about 58 miles away.
He ordered the ship’s heating and water to be cut off so the engines could use all its steam as it worked through dangerous ice fields to reach the sinking Titanic.
