James Cameron is renowned for his filmmaking skills. Ray Dalio is the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund. Both are further passionate about ocean exploration. They have both decided to join Triton Submarines to inspire upcoming generations of ocean explorers and advocates.
“Ray and Jim bring additional business acumen and discipline to the company, creative ideas, and unique opportunities that will amplify and expand on the important work we have accomplished so far,” says Patrick Lahey, Triton Submarines’ founder and president.
The move comes a decade after Cameron’s Deepsea Challenge. This was a record-setting dive, in March 2012, to Earth’s lowest point. He piloted a sub to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. The sub launched from the late Paul Allen’s superyacht Octopus. Cameron co-designed and co-engineered the craft, based on dozens of prior dives, where he also contributed to vehicle design. In fact, among those dives, he’s completed 33 to visit the wreck of the Titanic. Cameron additionally has developed deep-sea lighting and camera equipment. Naturally, he filmed the Deepsea Challenge experience, in 3D, and released a documentary about it by the same name.
Because of his dedication to ocean exploration, Cameron is also a recipient of National Geographic’s prestigious Hubbard Medal. He says the ability to be inside a sub is crucial to better understanding the oceans. After all, he adds, more than 80 percent of the oceans remain unexplored. “We’re entering an exciting new age of technically enabled ocean exploration reliant on a new suite of marine vehicles, advanced imaging systems, and other tech that will propel ocean science,” Cameron says.
As for Dalio (pictured at left, with Lahey), he, too, has prior sub experience. He and his son Mark Dalio are the co-founders of OceanX, which explores uncharted oceans and depths. OceanX’s new vessel, OceanExplorer, features media-production rooms and carries two Triton 3300/3 MKII subs. The subs have already contributed to important educational efforts. They’ve made the BBC documentary Blue Planet II possible, for instance. Furthermore, they’re involved in an upcoming National Geographic and Disney series bearing the working title OceanXplorers. Cameron is its executive producer as well.
Dalio is particularly happy with the decision to join Triton Submarines. He cites how the subs suit equipping with both media and scientific equipment, “to bring important discoveries back to everyone.” Additionally, “my long relationship with them has convinced me that they are the best and most cutting-edge builders of non-military subs in the world.”
Triton Submarines tritonsubs.com
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