THE Titanic's maiden voyage, abruptly interrupted by an iceberg 84 years ago, could end in New York Harbour within a week.
Mr George Tulloch, a former BMW dealer and "salvor in possession" of the Titanic remains, plans to haul a 13 ton chunk of the ship from its watery grave 2.5 miles beneath the Atlantic.
The section contains two first class cabins, which have lain on the ocean bed for 84 years, since the luxury ship hit an iceberg during its maiden voyage in 1912.
If all goes as planned, Mr Tulloch and the chunk will be steaming into New York on September 1st.
Critics are calling Mr Tulloch's efforts a grave robbing publicity stunt, but only Neptune can stop him. Tulloch's company, RMS Titanic Inc, has legal rights to the wreck and has retrieved 4,000 artefacts from it since 1987.
"The Titanic and its artefacts are being consumed by the ocean. We need to save what we can and we are here to do this job well Mr Tulloch said. "You can't just discover a wreck of this magnitude and then ignore it."
Mr Robert Ballard, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist who found the Titanic in 1985 with help from the US navy and the French government's oceanographic agency, branded Mr Tulloch's expedition "destructive and sad".
"It is as if a fleet of tractors had ploughed the battlefield of Gettysburg," Mr Ballard said.
It is not just what Mr Tulloch is doing that is offending some people, but the way in which he is doing it.
Two cruise ships, charging thousands of dollars per cabin, will come alongside the expedition's research vessels as they attempt to lift a section of the Titanic hull to the surface.
Three survivors of the April 14th, 1912, shipwreck will be present, as will the actor Burt Reynolds and the former astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.
Titanic buffs can purchase coal lifted from the doomed ship's remains for $25 a lump. Included are a brass plaque inscribed with the purchaser's name and a certificate of authenticity signed by Mr Tulloch.
The coal comes in an attractive ebony finished display case with a Plexiglas protective cover.
That is the sort of thing that suggests Mr Tulloch cares more about making money than preserving history, said Ms Karen Kamuda, vice president of the Titanic Historical Society.
More than 1,500 people died when the 882 foot Titanic went dawn after hitting an iceberg about 400 miles south of Newfoundland. Ms Kamuda says Mr Tulloch's efforts are the equivalent of selling tickets to the TWA Flight 800 recovery efforts off Long Island.
"Because a few generations have passed, why is a cruise now respectable?" she asked.
Speaking yesterday from the support vessel for French submarine Le Nautile, off the coast of Canada, Mr Frederic Munagori of the French institute for sea research and exploration, said part of the hull was expected to be brought to the surface next Tuesday or Wednesday.
On Friday, the Nautile made its 20th descent to the illustrious, wreck 3,800 metres under the sea since it began plumbing the depths on August 5th.