Virgin Oceanic (originally Virgin Aquatic) is an undersea leisure venture of Newport Beach, CA businessman Chris Welsh and Sir Richard Branson, part of Sir

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding compa ...

. The brand was first reported in a 2009

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Cit ...

interview.Time Magazine
"Virgin Founder Richard Branson"
Dan Fletcher, ''1 September 2009'' The flagship service provided by Virgin Oceanic was intended to take visitors to the deepest parts of the ocean; however, as of late 2014, the project has been put on hold until more suitable technologies are developed.

Fleet

Necker Belle The ''Necker Belle'' is a 105-foot (32 m) private charter catamaran yacht,New York Times"Ahoy, Matey - Let's Get Nautical" Michael Cannell, ''28 March 2010'' (accessed 1 August 2010) offered through Virgin Limited Edition and based at the re ...

— sailing catamaran yacht * Necker Nymph — open-cockpit SCUBA submersible *

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the (also spelled Tsitsistas, The term for th ...

— sailing catamaran yacht *

DeepFlight Challenger DeepFlight Challenger is a one-person submersible built with the intention of reaching the Challenger Deep, utilizing Hawkes Ocean Technologies#DeepFlight, DeepFlight technology from Hawkes Ocean Technologies. The submersible is owned by Virgin O ...

— high-depth submersible

Shallow diving program

The company is offering a shallow water "wet" submersible, Graham Hawkes's

Hawkes Ocean Technologies Hawkes Ocean Technologies is a Naval architecture, marine engineering firm that specializes in consumer submarines, founded by Graham Hawkes. It is headquartered in San Francisco, US. Hawkes Remotes Hawkes Remotes is a subsidiary that builds ROV ...

Deep Flight Merlin named '' Necker Nymph'' after Branson's private island in the

British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...

Virgin Limited Edition Virgin Limited Edition is a hotel company in the British multinational Virgin Group of companies. It has 9 properties in Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. Locations In 2025 the properties held by the company were: * Necker Island,. in the Br ...

Necker Island.gizmag.com
"Necker Nymph: underwater flying becomes Virgin territory"
Noel McKeegan, ''21 January 2010'' (accessed 25 July 2010) The ''Necker Nymph'' uses the

as its mothership.

Necker Nymph

The shallow dive program utilizes the scuba-sub Necker Nymph, a

HOT Hot commonly refers refer to: *Heat, a hot temperature *Pungency, in food, a spicy or hot quality Hot or HOT may also refer to: Places *Hot district, a district of Chiang Mai province, Thailand ** Hot subdistrict, a sub-district of Hot Distric ...

DeepFlight Merlin DeepFlight Merlin is a personal submarine by Hawkes Ocean Technologies, part of the DeepFlight line of submersibles. The positively buoyantDesign World"DeepFlight Merlin 3-person Aero Submarine" 18 February 2010 (retrieved 31 July 2010) submersib ...

. It is a three-place sub, with two passengers and one dive pilot. All three are required to wear scuba gear.

Deep diving program

The company plans to launch a deep sea submersible capable of carrying its passenger to extreme ocean depths. The deep sea adventure will be supported by the 125-ft super-

catamaran A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a watercraft with two parallel hull (watercraft), hulls of equal size. The wide distance between a catamaran's hulls imparts stability through resistance to rolling and overturning; no ballast is requi ...

mothership, and plans to use the

subVirgin Oceanic
Operations Team
(accessed 25 May 2011) to make dives to the depths of the worlds oceans.Virgin Oceanic
Catamaran
(accessed 25 May 2011)Virgin Oceanic
Sub
(accessed 25 May 2011) Both the catamaran and the submersible were formerly owned by

Steve Fossett James Stephen Fossett (April 22, 1944 – September 3, 2007) was an American businessman and a record-setting aviator, sailor, and adventurer. He was the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon and in a fixed-wing aircraf ...

, who had modified the racing catamaran to become the

mothership A mother ship, mothership or mother-ship is a large vehicle that leads, serves, or carries other smaller vehicles. A mother ship may be a maritime ship, aircraft, or spacecraft. Examples include bomber aircraft, bombers converted to carry exp ...

for his planned oceanic dive record attempt. After

's death the project went on hold until Chris Welsh purchased the equipment from Fossett's estate and restarted the endeavor. The attempt on

Challenger Deep The Challenger Deep is the List of submarine topographical features#List of oceanic trenches, deepest known point of the seabed of Earth, located in the western Pacific Ocean at the southern end of the Mariana Trench, in the ocean territory o ...

was first announced in April 2011.Popular Mechanics
"Q&A With Graham Hawkes, the Man Who Built the Deep Flight Challenger Submersible"
Sarah Fecht, 8 April 2011 (accessed 4 April 2012)

DeepFlight Challenger

This deep sea submersible, currently in the construction and testing phase, seats one person. The company has stated that it will be able to dive to the deepest part of the ocean, which has been measured to be somewhere between 10.91 kilometres (6.78 mi) deep and 11.03 kilometres (6.85 mi) deep. Only two subs in history, the

Bathyscaphe Trieste ''Trieste'' is a Swiss-designed, Italian-built deep-diving research bathyscaphe. In 1960, it became the first crewed vessel to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in Earth's seabed. The mission was the fi ...

in 1960 and

Deepsea Challenger ''Deepsea Challenger'' (DCV 1) was a deep-diving submersible designed to reach the bottom of the Challenger Deep, the deepest-known point on Earth. On 26 March 2012, Canadian film director James Cameron piloted the craft to accomplish this go ...

in 2012 have ever reached the deepest known point in the ocean at the bottom of the

Mariana Trench The Mariana Trench is an oceanic trench located in the western Pacific Ocean, about east of the Mariana Islands; it is the deep sea, deepest oceanic trench on Earth. It is crescent-shaped and measures about in length and in width. The maxi ...

.National Geographic
"James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive"
Ker Than, 25 March 2012 (accessed 27 March 2012) The sub's outer casing is made of a carbon fiber composite and is designed to maximize hydrodynamics. The second level of casing holds the batteries, dive tanks and all other components. The third and inner most layer is made of titanium with a quartz crystal viewing dome. Instead of using ballast like a typical submersible the

will "fly" to the ocean floor using propulsion. The

uses a custom lithium-ion battery system to power its two motors.

Five Dives project

Over the course of 2012 and beyond, Virgin Oceanic plans for their one-person sub to journey to the deepest part of each of Earth's five oceans.Hawkes Ocean Technologies
Infosheet DeepFlight Challenger
(accessed 25 March 2012) The first dive is planned for the deepest place on the planet: the bottom of the

– about 11 kilometers (7 mi) below the ocean's surface. This will be the third time human eyes have set sight there. This time, the plan is for a sub that "flies" more akin to an airplane which should allow its solo pilot, Chris Welsh, to not only reach the deepest point on Earth, but to then "fly" along the bottom of the Trench for up to an additional 10 kilometers (6 mi). The second dive planned – to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench – will be piloted by Sir Richard Branson. This trench is the deepest point in the Atlantic Ocean at over 8 kilometers (5 mi) below sea level. This location is also near to Branson's home and resort on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. Subsequent dives will be planned to carry a human pilot to the bottom of the Arctic, Southern and Indian oceans. Less than 3% of the seafloor has been explored, and none of the deepest points of the planet's oceans have ever been explored beyond a brief visit to one. The opportunities to see and learn from such dives are viewed as monumental.

Key dates and timings

Originally Virgin Oceanic's first dive was announced to be scheduled for August 2011 at the Mariana Trench later in 2011, and further dives were scheduled over the next 24 months. As of 20 September 2011 the research and development phase of the program has been extended due to work on design modification, this will extend the testing period through the end of 2011 and move the earliest opportunity of a first dive into early 2012. As of 21 February 2012, Virgin Oceanic reported successful tests of the ballast and life support systems. However, in June 2012, Welsh described a crack in the sub's protective quartz sphere which would necessitate the sphere's replacement before any deep dives could take place. By September 2012, variable buoyancy problems detected in summer testing had been resolved. Based on testing at high pressure, the DeepFlight Challenger was determined to be suitable only for a single dive, not the repeated uses that had been planned as part of Virgin Oceanic service. As such, in 2014, Virgin Oceanic "scrapped" plans for the five dives project using the DeepFlight Challenger, as originally conceived, putting plans on hold until more suitable technologies are developed.

References

External links

* * {{Use dmy dates, date=July 2019 Leisure companies of the United Kingdom O Hospitality companies disestablished in 2014 Hospitality companies established in 2009 2009 establishments in the British Virgin Islands 2014 disestablishments in British Overseas Territories