He may have lost the race to the bottom of the ocean to director James Cameron but Sir Richard Branson is confident his own deep-sea dive will reveal more than his rival's did.
He may have lost the race to the bottom of the ocean to the director James Cameron but Sir Richard Branson is confident his own deep-sea dive will reveal more than his rival's did.
Cameron this week made the first solo dive to the depths of the Marianas Trench, seven miles under the surface of the Pacific, trumping Sir Richard who has been developing his own deep-sea craft for a number of years.
But the billionaire tycoon and adventurer insists he is not jealous of the Titanic director, and thinks that his own quest, which will see him journey to the floor of the Puerto Rico Trench in the Atlantic, will prove even more thrilling than Cameron's journey to the bottom of the Pacific.
While Cameron discovered a lunar landscape with no living creatures larger than inch-long prawn-like crustaceans, Sir Richard said: "The Puerto Rico Trench is deeper than Mount Everest is tall, and it is completely unexplored. There are numerous Spanish and British galleons which have gone down there, so we would hope to be able to explore those. There are lots of different big creatures too."
The founder of the Virgin group of companies is due to make his voyage in about four months.
He explained that he had never been planning to explore the Marianas Trench, but admitted it was a disappointment that Cameron beat his organisation's attempt, which would have been piloted by Chris Welch, a colleague of Sir Richard's, in the Virgin Oceanic craft.
He said: "It was obviously a very historic day and actually an important day, a fantastic example of human endeavour and determination.
"I have been over Everest in a balloon, and that was awesome, but he went down one and a half times further than Everest is deep.
"I was never planning to do the Pacific dive, I have always planned to do the Atlantic," he said, adding that Cameron was a "good friend" that he hoped to co-operate with on future dives. After his dive, Cameron said he doubted that such barren waters as he experienced could sustain many life forms, but Sir Richard said any large creatures at the bottom of the ocean would have been scared off by Cameron's large vessel.
"You suddenly see this big mission coming down with massive lights, anything big would move a mile away," he added. "On such a short trip you really can't explore and move around a lot. We know there are gigantic things down there. I think that is where the two subs working together would be good.
"Ours is battery-powered, so very quiet. We could work out a way to identify a creature, then call the other sub to film it," he added.
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