“I want to show people worldwide that while the ocean is extremely powerful, it can be wonderful and enjoyable and really kind of life-changing if you go about it the right way,” Connor told reporters with the Wall Street Journal.
Conner told the Wall Street Journal he is confident the $20 million vessel, the Triton 4000/2 Abyssal Explorer, can make the voyage multiple times.
“Patrick has been thinking about and designing this for over a decade. But we didn’t have the materials and technology. You couldn’t have built this sub five years ago,” Connor told the publication.
“You know, what we need to do is build a sub that can dive to (Titanic-level depths) repeatedly and safely and demonstrate to the world that you guys can do that, and that Titan was a contraption,” Lahey told the Wall Street Journal.
Lahey was a critic who declared the OceanGate’s approach predatory. Many whistleblowers in the industry came forward with concerns over the sub’s ability to handle the voyage, as the company opted to skip many safety steps, including certification through the American Bureau of Shipping or Europe’s Det Norske Vertas.
Connor did not specify a date for when the voyage would take place.