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00:00This is the U.S. Navy's Swiss Army knife.
00:06The salvage ship Grasp is on a mission to locate one of the most important shipwrecks in American history.
00:13Move out, let us know what you got.
00:15The diving we're doing here is extremely dangerous.
00:17But have the Grasp and her crew taken on more than they can handle?
00:21We've had our asses handed to us more times out here by the North Sea.
00:25It's very frustrating and there's nothing we can do about it.
00:28This ship and her crew face punishing weather, equipment failures and deadly darkness at the bottom of the sea.
00:46The United States Naval ship Grasp is a salvage ship that carries cranes, robotic cameras and skilled Navy divers.
00:55She attempts some of the world's most difficult and dangerous marine salvage work.
01:00At 78 meters long and 2400 gross tons, she's no giant.
01:06But for sheer strength and versatility, she's the best in her class.
01:11Among other missions, the Grasp recovered wreckage from TWA Flight 800 in 1996.
01:18And in 2010, she helped Haiti rebuild its main harbor in the aftermath of that country's devastating earthquake.
01:32The Grasp's captain is Peter Long.
01:35He's served on a wide range of Navy vessels since the Vietnam War.
01:39But the Grasp is special.
01:49She's small in size but can do a really large job.
01:52We can send divers down with air supply from the ship.
01:57We have long legs in that we don't burn much fuel and we have an extremely long radius where we can get someplace quickly.
02:06And she's very, very seaworthy.
02:10The Grasp is stationed east of Scarborough in the forbidding North Sea.
02:16She is here not for rescue or salvage but to locate the Bonhomme Richard,
02:21one of the most important shipwrecks in American history.
02:26In 1779, the Bonhomme Richard led the fledgling U.S. Navy in bringing the Revolutionary War to British waters.
02:36She won a major victory but crippled, sank soon after the battle.
02:42But that triumph made her captain, John Paul Jones, the first legend in U.S. Navy lore.
02:49John Paul Jones was one of our early great naval leaders.
02:53And it was a famous battle where he said, I have not yet begun to fight and carried the day.
02:58And so, yeah, we're excited about it and it's a good part of American history.
03:03The Grasp is operated by a civilian crew of 29 and four Navy personnel.
03:09On this mission, she carries 17 top-notch Navy divers plus a team of five scientists.
03:25The scientists have enlisted the Grasp to help locate the legendary shipwreck.
03:33Melissa Ryan is the project manager for the search.
03:40This is her sixth attempt to find the Bonhomme Richard.
03:43But this time, she's got the U.S. Navy's top salvage ship on her side.
03:56The North Sea possesses strong currents that can erode shipwrecks in as little as 50 years.
04:01And the Bonhomme Richard sank more than two centuries ago.
04:05It's not an easy task at all to come out to the North Sea and just locate a shipwreck.
04:10It takes a lot of patience and a lot of work and it's been six years and we're still searching.
04:21On a previous search, Melissa's team identified two sites that could prove to be the wreck of the ship.
04:29While the Bonhomme Richard's hull may have eroded,
04:32her iron ballast, cannons, or the real prize, the ship's bell, may still survive.
04:40And she's counting on the divers to find what the robotic cameras and sensors could not.
04:46Humans can do things that technology can't.
04:48And that is judgment, they have awareness that's different,
04:53Master Chief Navy Diver Jim Mariano is the dive team leader.
05:03He is as committed to this project as Melissa Ryan.
05:07It's a rare chance to see a real-life Bonhomme Richard.
05:11It's a rare chance to see a real-life Bonhomme Richard.
05:15It's a rare chance to see a real-life Bonhomme Richard.
05:19He is as committed to this project as Melissa Ryan.
05:22It's a rare chance to test his divers to their limit.
05:26It's a first for us setting foot in the North Sea,
05:29it's the first Navy assistance as far as divers go to search for the Bonhomme Richard.
05:35There's a lot of firsts on this trip.
05:38So everybody's anxious to see that there are no glitches that come up.
05:41I think we've about worked out every idiotic detail that can come out of it has been taken care of.
05:46Is that it? All right, good.
05:48The Grasp is the only type of ship in the US Navy that can tackle the job at a moment's notice.
05:54Down one.
05:56She has a crane on her stern that is the lifeline for the divers
06:00and a half-ton platform for their voyage to the seabed.
06:05On this two-week mission, teams of divers will be lowered from the ship to depths of 70 metres.
06:11Running from the ship to the divers' suits are lines that provide air for them to breathe,
06:16heated water for warmth, and audio-video communication.
06:23There's danger at every turn.
06:25The divers have never been in the North Sea, and the team has never been on board.
06:31The divers have never been in the North Sea, and the team has never gone this deep.
06:36To go to the bottom of an ocean, to look for something that's 155 feet long,
06:42people say needle in a haystack.
06:45We're talking about needle in a hay field.
06:48They are testing the limits of technology and human endurance.
06:52Visibility less than five feet, ability to move at the bottom is restricted by current and time.
06:58This isn't a stroll in the park.
07:00They are restricted to just 40 minutes on the seabed in rotating teams of two.
07:05The diving we're doing here is extremely dangerous.
07:07Anything can go wrong at any time.
07:11For the Navy team, this is not just another search of the ocean floor.
07:15It's a quest for a symbol of U.S. naval pride.
07:19Hold the hook. Hold that. Now your turn.
07:24Confidence among the ship's crew is running high.
07:28Grass is a great ship. There's nothing that she really can't do.
07:31If you lost it, we can find it. It might take some time, but we can find it.
07:35But it's possible that on this mission, the ship and the crew are up against their greatest challenge.
07:40The divers examine footage taken from the seafloor.
07:44At these depths, it's dark and the current strong.
07:52The danger and challenges ahead are starting to sink in.
07:58Can't get to the bottom yet. That's dark.
08:03I'm scared.
08:05All right.
08:07What's up? Happy Divers!
08:09Happy Divers!
08:11Divers suit up for a test of their equipment
08:14before they set off to the first site that the scientists want to explore.
08:19Can you hear me up there, select?
08:21But there's a problem with the ship's crane.
08:29The crane's hydraulics are overheating and risk seizing up the entire unit.
08:35Without it, they can't send divers down to the seafloor.
08:39Frank Wells is the Grasp's chief engineer.
08:42Oil is getting too hot.
08:44This is one critical piece of equipment, so we have to figure out a solution.
08:49Otherwise, we're going to be dead in the water.
08:52I'm looking for water leaks.
08:54I'm looking for water leaks.
08:56If we see any droplets of water, I'll know that I have a hole in the coil
08:59and I'll have to make a new one or I'll have to repair this one.
09:03We're having a temperature issue right now,
09:05so we're going to take apart some of the piping
09:07and see if that won't help out so we can actually operate the divers in the water.
09:11I got the vendor here, Joel.
09:13The crew attempts a makeshift solution for the overheating problem.
09:18Hey, if you need more ice, take this out.
09:22This is ice. It's going in the trash can.
09:24It's going through the hydraulic fluid toward the crane.
09:27This should keep it 30 degrees cooler.
09:30But several hours later, the repair still isn't working.
09:36Jack of all trades, master of none.
09:39Hey, it wasn't broke? It wasn't really broke?
09:42It was just a little broke.
09:44It's going to look more and more like a cell, guys.
09:49The search for the U.S. Navy's most important shipwreck is facing a critical delay.
09:54And it hasn't even started yet.
10:00In the frigid North Sea, just east of Scarborough,
10:03the U.S. Naval ship Grasp is at a standstill on day one of an historic and dangerous mission.
10:09The search for the illustrious Bonhomme Richard, which sank over 200 years ago.
10:15Her main crane for lowering divers 70 meters to the bottom of the sea is overheating.
10:21Diver Jason Young is growing restless.
10:24The crane is an integral part of our operation.
10:27It takes the stage up and down.
10:29So if it's out of commission, then we're kind of stuck.
10:33So if we can't go, then, yeah, it's pretty bad.
10:37So, yeah, we're restless.
10:39After several hours of makeshift repairs,
10:42Chief Engineer Frank Wells finally finds a solution that fixes the overheating pump.
10:50I cleaned out some of the pressure controls, and I reset them to the factory defaults.
10:55And now the pump is operating much better, and we're not getting the temperature rise we were before.
11:01I feel hopeful. I'm not out of the woods yet, but we're close.
11:04I can see the edge of the field.
11:07They have lost a day, but the Grasse can now begin her voyage to the first of two sites
11:12where they hope to find the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard, 55 kilometers away.
11:24Now we're underway. We're going out to the number one priority site,
11:28and we are excited about putting the boat in the water tomorrow
11:31and seeing if we have any metal hits on what they suspect might be a wreck of the period.
11:38Full rudder.
11:43By dawn, the Grasse reaches the diving site.
11:46The exact position is classified.
11:49The Navy wants to prevent treasure hunters from raiding the Bonhomme Richard.
11:57The scientists believe the famous ship carried a lot of metal.
12:01On Grasse's work boat, dive team engineer Charlie Baker
12:04deploys a device called a magnetometer to scour the site.
12:09One of the key features of John Paul Jones' ship, the Bonhomme Richard,
12:13is it had a lead and metal ballast.
12:15So we figured if we get a big spike on metal,
12:17it could be the lead ballast or metal ballast that that ship had.
12:20This magnetometer is sensitive enough.
12:22It's going to pick up a chain of any kind of banding that ship might have.
12:25If the ship's had a bell down there, we're going to pick up that ship's bell.
12:29On the fantail at the stern, the divers once again test their gear.
12:34They've been training for this mission for four months,
12:37and the excitement's palpable.
12:39We worked so hard to get here, to finally be here and actually see it happen.
12:43But I'm super excited myself, yeah.
12:53The divers carefully calculate how much weight they must wear.
12:57Too much? They could be stuck on the seafloor.
13:00Too little? And they'll be overwhelmed by the current.
13:08We're wearing up to 80 pounds of weight,
13:10deep sea boots, which weigh 25 pounds apiece.
13:13We're wearing lead shot in our calves and our legs.
13:17We've got 24 pounds of a helmet on top of our head.
13:21Let's kick that fire up a couple notches and get some. Come on!
13:25As the divers get ready,
13:27Charlie Baker has returned with results from the magnetometer,
13:30and they're tantalising.
13:32That was a ship.
13:34It doesn't look like the bow of a ship.
13:37It has that ship shape, it's pointy on the end,
13:40and then it widens a bit as you go through.
13:43I mean, it's a perfect ship shape.
13:46On this first of two possible sites,
13:48could the Grasp and her team have already located the wreck?
13:58To find out, the crew must lock the ship securely and precisely over the site,
14:03using a technique called a three-point mooring.
14:07So what we will do in this case,
14:09we take a big radius of a circle
14:12and we put the target area right in the centre.
14:17Captain Long will first drop the stern anchor.
14:20Then, sailing slightly past the target,
14:22he will veer to the left and drop the bow anchor.
14:25Finally, he will use the ship's thrusters to pivot to the right
14:29and drop a third anchor.
14:31Vauxhall Bridge, 50 yards from the anchorage.
14:36The stern anchor is the most dangerous.
14:38It weighs three tonnes.
14:43The chain, another tonne.
14:45When released, anyone snagged could be dragged to the bottom
14:49or cut in half.
14:52You guys can come over here and help out with the line.
14:55It's an old-school technique with no computers.
14:58Which way is up, baby?
15:00The Navy divers rarely have such a hands-on, dangerous job.
15:04All right, non-essential personnel, walk forward.
15:07Stand on your stations.
15:09Well, boys, we're going to look like rock stars or rock heads.
15:13What's it going to be?
15:16Stand by.
15:18Vauxhall Bridge, let go of the anchor.
15:21Let go of the anchor.
15:25One precise blow to the safety bolt
15:27and three tonnes of steel lash out.
15:31The heavy line for the stern anchor now spools out.
15:35Nice. Nice.
15:37Outstanding, gentlemen.
15:39All right, slowing down.
15:43The other two anchors are deployed easily.
15:51The ship is finally moored in place, but it has taken hours.
15:56They'll wait until tomorrow to search for the wreck.
15:59The divers are already excited.
16:03We're in the North Sea, boys.
16:05We're a day away from diving.
16:07Here we are.
16:08One, two, three.
16:11But overnight, the North Sea becomes stormy.
16:14Despite the strength of the three-point mooring,
16:17powerful winds drag the grasp
16:19and her anchors more than 30 metres off target.
16:23The situation is that the swell has picked up in the North Sea.
16:27We've got a front coming through,
16:29and so we dragged about 100 feet,
16:31which puts us out of the range of the divers.
16:34We're trying to reposition and get back over the site,
16:37but there's some question of whether we can dive.
16:40The grasp has to be in the exact position,
16:43because the divers have just 30 metres of spare tether
16:46once they are on the bottom.
16:48Captain Long must bring the anchors back up
16:51and moor the ship all over again.
16:54It will take another half day, time they cannot afford.
17:01With bad weather brewing,
17:03the grasp's mission is once again at risk.
17:12In the North Sea, the crew of the US naval ship Grasp
17:16have faced severe challenges over the past three days.
17:20She remains anchored, but the ship has been dragged off the site
17:23where they'd hoped to find the wreck of the historic Bonhomme Richard.
17:27We're not going to be diving this morning.
17:31Alexis is game, but the ASP people are not really.
17:35Why?
17:36Captain Long and Chief Scientist Melissa Ryan meet on the bridge.
17:40Long could pull up the anchors and re-anchor in the right position,
17:44but by the time that's done,
17:46the incoming bad weather will make it impossible to dive on the site.
17:58The search for the Bonhomme Richard is on hold.
18:09Dive team leader Jim Mariano wants to dive anyway.
18:14Before the weather gets any worse...
18:16He knows they won't find anything here,
18:18but he wants to test his divers and the ship's equipment.
18:22We do it now.
18:23They'll have to hurry before the storm hits.
18:26We'll put the A-team in first, make sure everything is good to go.
18:30The divers fully suit up.
18:35Umbilical lines will provide them air, pot water to heat their suits,
18:39electricity for lighting and cameras, and a communications line.
18:48The support team soaps the suits, looking for signs of leaks.
18:53There is no margin for error.
18:56What we're doing right now is we're checking for any leaks in our hoses here.
19:01If there's no bubbles, there's no leaks.
19:03You're not part of the dive, everybody else, move out over that way.
19:07Jeff Smitman and Brian Williams are among the team's most experienced divers.
19:12They've been chosen as the first U.S. Navy divers
19:15to ever go to the bottom of the North Sea.
19:23One diver's umbilical is red, the other green.
19:27Red diver, move to the stage.
19:31The stage is a half-ton steel platform that will take the divers down to the seabed.
19:38Green diver, move to the stage.
19:49The two divers are swung out over the side.
19:53Diver's moving out.
19:57And lowered into the icy waters of the North Sea.
20:05Dive team leader Jim Mariano is in charge at the monitors,
20:08with other divers watching for safety.
20:15They are now breathing a mix of helium and oxygen.
20:18It's called heliox, and it makes their voices sound like cartoon characters.
20:27The air we breathe on land is an oxygen-nitrogen mix.
20:35But nitrogen has an unusual property of depth.
20:38It creates the same mental state as alcohol.
20:41Many divers have died by becoming intoxicated at the bottom of the sea.
20:48In heliox, helium replaces the deadly nitrogen.
20:57I'm burning, I'm burning.
21:01OK, red.
21:05Finally, after setbacks and delays, they get to the bottom.
21:14It's a first for the US Navy in the North Sea,
21:17and the deepest dive ever made by this elite team.
21:27We're there.
21:32Nice job, boys.
21:35After 40 minutes, it's time to return to the surface.
21:39Both divers return to the stage.
21:42But the divers can't just rush back to the surface.
21:45If they did, the rapid change of pressure
21:48would cause the bloodstream to fill up with tiny gas bubbles.
21:52These bubbles can create intense pain in muscle and joints
21:56and attack the nervous system, causing paralysis, even death.
22:04It's a dangerous condition called the bends.
22:09This lethal problem is solved by stopping the divers
22:12at various depths on their ascent, giving the bubbles time to dissolve.
22:16Their lives depend on it.
22:18Diving in and of itself is a very inherently dangerous environment.
22:26At these depths, this process could take up to three hours
22:30and slow down the entire mission.
22:35On the grasp, the divers resurface in just one hour
22:38and are rushed into the ship's recompression chamber.
22:43There, they will safely adjust to normal atmospheric pressure.
22:47But if they don't make it to the chamber in less than five minutes,
22:51they could die.
22:55So we have exactly five minutes. We have a symptom called chokes.
22:59It's where fluid actually starts coming out of the lungs themselves
23:03and it can be a rapid onset and cause death to the diver fairly quickly.
23:08The divers are rushed into the chamber.
23:11The clock is ticking. It's been three minutes already.
23:15Zero feet high.
23:17High zero feet.
23:19High zero.
23:21On the bottom OK in the chamber.
23:23OK in the chamber.
23:25Charge, 50-second descent, 429, 40 to 50.
23:29The two divers must spend two hours in the chamber.
23:33That allows for a new team to enter the water right away.
23:38Divers coming to the next stop, next stop surface.
23:41Divers coming to the next stop, next stop surface.
23:44OK in the chamber.
23:46OK in the chamber.
23:48Watch your head. Watch this deck, it's slick.
23:54The test dive has been a success.
23:57Go that way.
23:59Good job, man. Good job.
24:01But the divers know that in the cold and the dark,
24:04the search for the Bonhomme Richard is going to test them to the limit.
24:09You're only good with your light,
24:11so you've probably got a five-foot, six-foot swath in front of you,
24:14so it's going to take time if we're nowhere near where we're supposed to be at.
24:18And the weather is about to pose another serious setback.
24:25It's just the nature of the beast.
24:28It's unfortunate we're going to lose time,
24:31but there's nothing we can do about it.
24:35Four days into the mission to locate the sunken 230-year-old shipwreck,
24:39the Bonhomme Richard, a North Sea storm sweeps in.
24:46With a ship heaving and pitching, diving is impossible.
24:51Winds gust to 100 kilometers per hour,
24:54with five-meter seas,
24:56in a weather blast that's forecast to last for three days.
25:02Captain Long decides he must take the grasp to shelter,
25:05delaying the mission even further.
25:10Very frustrating.
25:12It's frustrating because we've got two sites that we're very anxious to get divers on,
25:16but it's a physical impossibility, and there's nothing we can do about it.
25:22The next day, weather continues to pound the ship.
25:25The divers are growing restless.
25:28Hang tough, you guys.
25:30Stir craziness. I know I'm getting a little stir crazy.
25:32I'm ready to get down there and find this thing.
25:37The only good thing about the weather is that it gives engineer Frank Wells
25:41time to repair some of the nagging problems with his ship,
25:44among them an exhaust leak in the engine room.
25:48Well, we have an exhaust leak into the engine space where we're working.
25:51That can cause high levels of carbon monoxide and it's a fire hazard.
25:55This ship is more than 20 years old.
25:57There's always something to fix.
25:59It's a 24-hour-a-day job.
26:01Pretty much every day we have something that needs to be fixed.
26:04It's never-ending, but it's enjoyable too.
26:06It's always a challenge.
26:08You never know what tomorrow is going to hold.
26:10Frank has to make sure the grasp is functioning perfectly.
26:13Their mission depends on it.
26:19There's no time for any other technical setbacks.
26:26The scientists are also feeling the pressure.
26:30Well, being in the midst of weather delays, it's very frustrating.
26:34We want to work, we have a whole crew that's ready to work
26:37and they're excited about it and you just have to sit tight.
26:40There's nothing we can do.
26:42Another night passes without a dive
26:44and they're already halfway through their mission schedule.
26:48But dawn brings clear skies and it's now a race against the clock.
26:52Captain Long steers the grasp back to the first site
26:55where the scientists think the shipwreck may lie.
27:07The crew prepares another precise three-point mooring.
27:11Here's the wreck.
27:13They'll start heaving around and I'll thrust over
27:15to get closer to the centreline, OK?
27:18They have to be no more than 30 metres away
27:20from the target's exact coordinates
27:22and this time they hope the mooring holds.
27:29The scientists surveyed this site last year
27:31and it holds great promise as the location of the famous shipwreck.
27:36The site that we're trying to dive on
27:38is basically little clumps of white coral.
27:42Coral is a very important part of the shipwreck.
27:45Little clumps of white coral.
27:48Coral is uncommon on the sandy floor of the North Sea,
27:51only growing here on rocks or man-made objects.
27:54That's why Melissa thinks the shipwreck may be here.
27:57Sometimes it grows on wood, sometimes it grows on metal,
28:01so we'll find out.
28:03It'll be interesting.
28:05The divers are excited to get back into the water.
28:09Maybe too excited.
28:11Get around!
28:13On deck, dive team leader Jim Mariano reads them the riot act.
28:18All right, all stop.
28:20We've got a lot of people motivated.
28:22Everybody wants to get in the water,
28:24but I'm looking around and people are doing this, this, this, this.
28:27There's a whole bunch of stuff going on
28:29and not everybody's sure what's going on.
28:31Jim knows this is when mistakes can happen, with fatal consequences.
28:35We need to cross our teeth and dot our I's.
28:37We are not getting in the water until we are ready.
28:40Right now it's a little chaotic.
28:42I want it to stop, take a deep breath, start out slow.
28:45We'll get in the water, don't worry.
28:47All right?
28:49All right, guys.
28:51This time it's divers Kelly Polk and Steve Van Zant
28:54who are going to the bottom of the North Sea.
28:58What's our act, divers?
29:00Act, divers!
29:03Helmets and umbilicals are checked for leaks.
29:06The divers must have power, hot water, air, and communications.
29:12Sorry, we're not taking you to the back.
29:14Sorry, we're not back there.
29:16Who will dive for the stage?
29:18Who will dive for the stage?
29:20Red divers for the stage.
29:22Red divers for the stage.
29:24Red for the stage.
29:26Red divers for the stage.
29:36He's got to suck it in.
29:38Red divers, suck it in a little bit.
29:40Green divers, move to the stage.
29:42Green divers, move to the stage.
29:46Divers going up and over to 20 feet.
29:49Divers going up and over to 20 feet.
29:51Move back.
29:54Back up.
30:14Okay, red. Okay, green.
30:16Okay, red. Okay, green.
30:18And the divers begin their slow descent to the bottom,
30:2120 meters down, pushing the limits of technology.
30:32Bank, 1,700.
30:34Bank, 1,600.
30:40John, it's like 20 feet.
30:4216, 13.
30:46The coral Melissa expected to see is here,
30:49but not as much as in her survey.
30:51She thinks they might be slightly off target.
30:55They're seeing mostly sand with some rocks or something
30:58with white coral on it,
31:00but it's not the extensive coral bed we're looking for
31:02that marks the site,
31:04so they're not quite in the right place yet.
31:06They've got to keep walking.
31:12Yeah.
31:14Diver Kelly Polk sees an object covered with coral.
31:17It could be man-made.
31:35Red, do you have that piece of coral?
31:44He doesn't have any pockets.
31:4640 minutes on the seabed is over.
31:48The divers have to return to the surface.
31:51But Kelly seems determined to push himself to his absolute limit,
31:55to retrieve the mysterious objects,
31:57and risks life and limb to do it.
32:05Two Navy divers are struggling to retrieve an object
32:08that they hope will solve a 230-year-old mystery.
32:12But time is up.
32:14You guys got about three-and-a-half minutes
32:16till you got to get off the bottom.
32:21All right, Green, go ahead, get yourself back on the stage.
32:24Let me know when you're on the stage.
32:26You got your umbilical pushed over the back.
32:30Diver Kelly Polk attempts to get the coral-covered object
32:33to the stage, but it's heavy,
32:36and he's pushing himself to the edge of his 40-minute dive.
32:41If he goes longer, he's risking his life.
32:44Dive team leader Jim Mariano orders him back.
32:49Kelly, you're going to have to leave that piece of coral on the bottom.
32:52You can't get up the stage. You can't get up on the stage right now.
33:08The divers clamber back onto the platform
33:11and begin the long haul back to the surface.
33:19Divers are leaving the bottom!
33:21Divers are leaving the bottom!
33:23Divers are leaving the bottom!
33:26Hey, Jim, can you do me a favor and ask them
33:28if they were able to get that coral?
33:30I'll ask them.
33:32OK, Red. OK, Green.
33:37It takes more than an hour to surface in gradual stages,
33:41but the divers finally reach the U.S. grasp.
33:45Start with the fore!
33:50All right.
33:53Hold that. Top down easy. Top down easy.
33:57Up on the hook.
34:00Pull him in. Down two.
34:03All right, nice and slow.
34:06Once again, they have less than five minutes
34:09to get into the recompression chamber.
34:12Every second counts.
34:16Getting tight suits and 50 kilos of gear off isn't easy.
34:22All right, go ahead, walk them in, load them.
34:26You good over there?
34:28You good over there?
34:39The first one I tried to dig up, I couldn't get out.
34:42I don't know how big it was, but it was...
34:44But the second one I grabbed, I just started digging
34:47and pulled out a big rock like this.
34:49It could have been a cannonball. I don't know.
34:53A new diving team, Chris Whitman and William Queen,
34:56ascend down.
35:10After a few minutes searching, success.
35:16He just picked up a small one and hopefully we'll bring that back.
35:22No, I'm far from the first one.
35:27On surface charge. One minute, 11 seconds.
35:30Up two. Three down, we'll go to your bench.
35:36But at first inspection, Melissa is certain
35:39that the object is not man-made.
35:41We got a rock, I think.
35:43Looks like a very porous rock that has lots of coral growing on it
35:47and not quite sure what else. Looks pretty heavy.
35:49Definitely looks like a rock.
35:51What's wrong?
35:52What's wrong is that there should be a whole field of coral.
35:56OK.
35:57What he found there was like a little patch.
36:00Frustrations are running high.
36:02OK. That's not the site. Kelly was in the right place.
36:06There's not enough coral here to indicate a shipwreck.
36:09We're going to get a bearing from the captain right before the next dive,
36:13right before they go. OK, then that's right now.
36:16Melissa wants to move to the next location,
36:19but the Navy divers' confidence is now running high.
36:22They want to keep searching here.
36:24The captain has to exactly where it is.
36:27Captain!
36:30Is that the most recent bearing you had for us? Zero.
36:36I think my vibe today is probably a little bit disappointed
36:42just in that, you know, we were hoping for some great artefacts
36:46or hoping that that coral was attached to something spectacular.
36:51It doesn't look like it's going that way,
36:54so I'm a little disappointed in that.
36:57There are only four days of exploration left.
37:01Melissa decides to abandon this site and move to the other one,
37:05which shows more promise.
37:07It's her mission, and she's in charge.
37:11OK, then we'll point up the anchor tonight.
37:13It's impossible to leave.
37:15We've got a working line over here.
37:19The stern anchor is jammed,
37:21tangled up in its own wire and cannot be retrieved.
37:25A bowed anchor is one of the most difficult situations
37:28to deal with when you're recovering an anchor.
37:31There's nothing in the textbook that tells you how to deal with a bowed anchor
37:34because it's different every time.
37:36Jim Mariano and Raymond Miller discuss what to do,
37:39but there's no clear answer.
37:41We'll figure it out later.
37:43We'll figure it out later. Let's figure getting it up and over first.
37:46If we bring the chain up, we lessen the load when we're trying to pull bikes over.
37:49You can't get the anchor all the way across the deck.
37:52Finally, the problem is solved by cutting the wire off.
38:01But it's yet another three-hour setback they can ill afford.
38:08Are they coggy? Are they cycling now, or what?
38:14Five hours later, the Grasp arrives at a classified location
38:19and executes a perfect three-point mooring.
38:25The scientists board the Grasp's workboat again
38:28and deploy the magnetometer to seek out metal on the ocean floor.
38:35They are looking for cannons, cannonballs or the ship's iron ballast,
38:40and the magnetometer is showing lots of hits.
38:46We've made four passes over a particular target that we're interested in
38:50and we're seeing a magnetic anomaly
38:52right where the side scan is showing some sort of reflection.
38:57So we're going to look at it in more detail when we get back, but it's promising.
39:02Two divers are on the bottom within the hour.
39:08After a 40-minute survey, they are ordered back to the surface.
39:12But on ascent, a deadly problem arises.
39:16Best have more cranes down. We're dropping hydraulic pressure. Unable to maintain.
39:20Shut it down.
39:22What about starboard?
39:24We're going to shut it down.
39:26Unable to maintain.
39:28Shut it down.
39:30What about starboard?
39:32I cannot cross-connect to the starboard side. The fuses are blown.
39:3512 metres from the surface, just after the divers' last decompression stop,
39:40the crane is losing hydraulic pressure.
39:43Two men are trapped underwater,
39:45and if they don't get on the ship in the next five minutes,
39:48they could die from the bends.
39:51On the side, here's what we got. Stage is down.
39:54We're going to do that voodoo that we do so well.
39:57We're on a 240 for 40, no decompression, we got no time to screw around.
40:01We get them on the surface, diving officer will take green, I'll take red, down we go.
40:06Any questions?
40:10Jim's plan is to pull the divers to the surface by their umbilical lines.
40:19This emergency is rare and dangerous.
40:22They have just minutes to get the divers to the recompression chamber,
40:25or they could suffer the bends.
40:30All right, keep even around, guys.
40:32Metre by metre, the divers are pulled towards safety.
40:40On the surface!
40:42All right, nice and easy.
40:48Green, coming up the ladder.
40:50Green, divers on the ladder.
40:52Understand.
40:54Start at the 107 offset.
40:59All right, diver, move to the ladder.
41:03Take your time there, Johnny West, watch your step.
41:06It's a reminder of how a single failure can spell fatal disaster.
41:11It's kind of a big thing to just get hauled up like that,
41:14especially during decompression.
41:17Plus the current was ripping, it was pulling the umbilical.
41:20I've never actually experienced that for real before.
41:22It's only been in drills, so...
41:25In the final two days on this site, they push even harder.
41:29Down two!
41:32But in spite of tantalising scans and the presence of coral,
41:38the North Sea will not reveal the location of the Bonhomme Richard.
41:43The diver's actually on a pile of rock,
41:47a big kind of square, rectangular rock.
41:50He says it's solid, looks like a rock.
41:52The magnetometer has picked up minerals from these rocks,
41:56not metal from a shipwreck.
41:59Sometimes geology can mimic a lot of things
42:02and we see what we want to see.
42:05We didn't see anything cultural down there.
42:07We don't believe this is a shipwreck, unfortunately.
42:10To Chief Scientist Melissa Ryan, it's cold comfort.
42:14But now she knows where not to look next time.
42:17We have accomplished our mission objective,
42:19which was to investigate our Priority 1 site.
42:22So that is a success.
42:25And even though it was not what we hoped,
42:29that's still important in the entire search.
42:35The Bonhomme Richard is out there somewhere
42:37and it's hiding really well.
42:41I'm starting to think that maybe it's not meant to be found.
42:46We have confirmed that it is not the Bonhomme Richard.
42:48I would have been very disappointed if we had left the area
42:51and not been able to dive on it and then discover exactly what it is.
42:55So that underscores the difficulty of finding her out here.
43:01But the work done on this mission
43:03brings them one step closer to another expedition,
43:06to find the ship that gave birth to the US Navy.
43:10And if called, the GRASP will be there to finish the job she started.
43:15This team is ready to return
43:17and have the experience they need to succeed,
43:20not to mention the best ship in the US Navy to do the job.
43:41NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
43:45California Institute of Technology