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We’ve all seen the movie, we’ve all read the books – the sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the twentieth century’s most recognisable and indeed, deeply tragic events. It’s a ghost ship that looms large in the mists of our popular culture, our history and indeed, our maritime imagination – something only fuelled by the rediscovery of the wreck in 1985. This week, CNN has been talking to the man who made finding the Titanic his mission - and he credits his success to something that's perhaps a little surprising.
Professor Robert Ballard, a renowned American oceanographer and marine biologist whose pioneering use of deep-diving submersible craft, laid the foundations for under-sea investigation and marine archaeology as we know it. He’s not only famous for finding the Titanic, but many other famous shipwrecks too – Ballard also rediscovered President John F. Kennedy’s PT-109, the German battleship Bismarck, and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown that sank in 1942. During the mid-1980s, he led a series of exploratory investigations 12,000 feet below sea level to take a look at the broken hull of the infamous sunken Titanic, and through this, experts have managed to piece together a little better what happened on that fateful night in April 1912.
What most people don’t know about the rediscovery of the ship is that Robert Ballard has dyslexia – and indeed, in an interview with CNN this week, he actually described how it was dyslexia that fostered the skills and the innovation that were needed to make the biggest discovery in maritime history. It’s a fairly recent discovery for the Professor – it only came to light at the age of 72 - but according to the man himself, it made a lot of events from his past suddenly make sense.
Speaking on CNN, Professor Ballard opened up about his experience having dyslexia and recounts an anecdote about the discovery of the Titanic that truly exemplifies some of the amazing visual and spatial awareness that people with dyslexia can find comes quite naturally to them. When sat in a manned craft in an expedition to the wreck, due to failing navigation systems and poor sonar, Ballard’s pilot became lost and recommended aborting the descent to the sea floor. However as a result of his extensive study of site maps and images and what he describes as his ability to develop a detailed 3D mental model of the area, Professor Ballard was able to pinpoint their location and allow the exploration keep going until they came across the shipwreck – which was exactly where he said it would be.
“I didn’t know how I did it then," he said. "But I now know how I had that gift to do it, and it’s been so useful to me in all my explorations and I want other kids in the world to embrace it as the wonderful gift that it is.”
The discovery of the Titanic isn't an isolated occurrence - Professor Ballard has made a career out of diving into the past and finding everything from shipwrecks to undersea vents that it had been deemed almost impossible to find, with innovative methods and a highly developed spatial skill set that truly mark him out as one of the twenty-first century's great explorers. It seems that dyslexia has had a real impact on his career, and allowed us insider access to some truly amazing sources and events that would have otherwise been lost to history.
Professor Ballard is now a vocal advocate for people with dyslexia, and wants to make sure that the younger generation know that it’s very possible for them to go on and do amazing things, make discoveries and have the careers that they want. You can catch up with his interview with CNN’s Bianna Golodryga here, as well as find out more about his career and his latest publication, his memoir Into the Deep, at CNN Travel.