The sunken Goliath and Triumph which played key roles in the World War I Dardanelle Campaign and were at one time dubbed "floating castles," will be filmed for the first time since they sank for a National Geographic documentary. James Delgado, Mike Fletcher and Warren Fletcher who make documentary films for National Geographic's "The Sea Hunters" program will be assisted by Enes Edis and Savas Karakas from Turkey. Yesterday, at Rahmi Koc Museum a meeting was held for the documentary that is also supported by the Turkish Institute of Nautical Archeology (TINA).

Filming will commence this week. The documentary will follow the human stories while exploring the debris of the sunken ships, which will thus be filmed for the first time. Goliath, which could not withstand the artillery offensive lead by Captain Ahmet Saffet, sank at around 1:00 a.m. on 13 May 1915 and caused Churchill to resign. Triumph followed it on May 25 and its sinking forced the invading forces to end their maritime campaign. "The action that took place on the sea was not inferior to that conducted on land" Savas Karakas says.

The team that will explore the sunken ships that weigh 13,000 tons each, and are longer than 100 meters, and now lie dead under 70 meters of water, cannot contain their excitement. The program's presenter and consultant, James Delgado has so far filmed many important sunken ships, including the Titanic. Delgado, who came to Turkey for the third time in relation with the documentary, says: "Sometimes in the countries we go, people want to direct us and we often respond to them that the world does not care about what they have to tell. I can certainly say that this instance our dive is important for the whole world." The program's director Mike Fletcher thanks the Turkish members of the documentary staff for the preparations they have made so far. The gratitude was well deserved, Karakas managed to gain all the required permissions from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Copyright and Cinema General Directorate, Maritime Affairs Undersecreteriat, the Board of Monuments and General Staff within four months.

The team, which will set off today, will conduct 10 dives. Each dive will last two and a half hours, of which 25 minutes is required just for the descent, while 80 minutes will be spent in the pressure chamber. The 50 minute long documentary film will be broadcast in 16 languages on the National Geographic Channel.