Man trying to sell original OceanGate sub for $800k fears it will never be sold

A broker is trying to sell the original Oceangate submersible, and now fears that they will never be able to shift it in the wake of the disaster on the Titan.

I would be the first to admit that I am not overly familiar with the sales market for submersibles. However, it doesn't take an expert to realise that being connected to one of the most widely publicised submersible disasters would probably not help in selling a vessel.

But this is the very problem facing a submersible broker who is in possession of a vessel called The Antipodes.

The vehicle features an acrylic sphere at the front, and is designed to dive to depths of around 1,000ft, and is listed at just under $800,000. So far so standard submersible sales.

There's just one problem, however.

OceanGate/Becky Kagan Schott

The submersible is the first vessel which was operated by OceanGate, the company at the heart of the Titan disaster which saw five people get killed on an ill-fated expedition to the wreck of the Titanic.

Steve Reoch, a broker, confirmed to Insider that the sub is listed at $795,000, but now fears he will never sell it, saying: “I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”

He added that he would likely be 'tied up in litigation for years', despite the vessel having strong safety records and being used for numerous trips.

The Antipodes was built by Perry Submersibles in 1973 and is currently docked at OceanGate's headquarters in Everett, Washington.

It recently emerged that OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush had been planning to use the ill-fated Titan submersible for deep sea oil and gas extraction.

He had intended the trips to the Titanic to be used as a means of proving the technology, with him telling business magazine Fast Company: "The biggest resource is oil and gas. But oil and gas [companies] don’t take new technology. They want it proven, they want it out there.

OceanGate

“The long-term value is in the commercial side. Adventure tourism is a way to monetize the process of proving the technology. The Titanic is where we go from startup to ongoing business.”

Deep sea mining is an experimental front of mining, and is has been widely criticised for the environmental damage it will cause.

Information on deep sea mining published by Greenpeace said: "Companies went to extract metals from the seabed to sell them to industries that need increasing amounts of manganese, cobalt, nickel and copper for one simple reason: to make a profit. To them, the sea is just another frontier to exploit for money.

"Mining companies are saying they need to mine the seabed for the metals needed to make batteries for the energy transition away from fossil fuels. But mining one of the last untouched ecosystems on Earth will never be 'green'."