The Five Deeps Expedition is the first manned expedition to the deepest points in each of the world’s five oceans. A team of more than 30 people will travel around the world with a first-of-its-kind, commercially-rated Triton submersible called DSV Limiting Factor to dive to the bottoms of the Puerto Rico Trench (Atlantic Ocean), South Sandwich Trench (Southern Ocean), Java Trench (Indian Ocean), Challenger Deep (Pacific Ocean), and Molloy Deep (Arctic Ocean) as well as several additional global highlights including a potential dive to the wreck of the recently located (in 2017) USS Indianapolis.
The team also plans to dive to the bottom of the Meteor Deep (South Atlantic) as well as the Diamantina Deep (southern Indian Ocean), Philippine Trench, South Solomon Trench (Solomon Islands), and Tonga Trenches to enhance the world’s knowledge of these seldom, if ever, visited deep ocean features.
The Expedition is lead by explorer and private equity investor Victor Vescovo, who will pilot the submersible on its solo and two-person dives. The submersible will be launched from support vessel DSSV Pressure Drop, which is equipped with state-of-the-art echosounding equipment. This will enable Five Deeps to produce detailed bathymetric maps of each of the five trenches before each dive to ensure the safety of its operations.
In March 2019, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project and the Five Deeps Expedition, where it was agreed that all of the high-resolution bathymetry data acquired during the Five Deeps Expedition will be donated to Seabed 2030 for inclusion in the global map of the ocean floor, to increase humanity’s collective scientific understanding of the world’s oceans.
