Bosses at a thriving Keighley firm are funding a deep-sea probe of the famous liner Carpathia.

Billy Skelton, 53 and David Wingate, 51, of Skelgate Holdings, Crosshills, have ploughed hundreds of thousands of pounds into a new company that will fund the search of the ship that raced to help the Titanic in 1912.

The men have been business partners since 1991 and have built up their food delivery operation into a national operation with a turnover of £11.5 million.

The Cunard liner Carparthia picked up 700 passengers from the mid-Atlantic after the tragedy. She was sunk by a German U-boat in 1918 and lies in 600ft of water about 185 miles west of Land's End in the Atlantic.

The new firm, Oceanpoint UK, has its headquarters in Keighley and a co-director is former Keighley man Graham Jessop who discovered the Carpathia last September using a sonar probe.

Mr Jessop, 42, who now lives in Brittany, France, is the son of well-known adventurer Keith Jessop who hit the headlines in 1981 when he found HMS Edinburgh in the Arctic Ocean and raised £44 million of gold which sank with her.

The firm has bought SV Oceanventure - a 258-ton survey and dive support vessel which the company will use to mount commercial operations including confirming that ships have sunk and retrieving black box flight recorders from crashed aircraft.

The vessel is currently being made ship-shape in Grimsby where it was recently brought from Holland. The re-fit will be ready for the deep sea adventure planned for March.

Mr Skelton, said: "This is a commercial adventure. I am a friend of Keith Jessop and know Graham through his father. We will not be going on the Carpathia trip but could well find ourselves on some of the others."

Graham Jessop said: "The operation will involve us locating, then filming, the wreck of the Carpathia. Working from Oceanventure, we will be using modern sonar equipment and remotely-operated vehicles to explore and film the wreck site."

Tim Parr, a partner with accountants Horwath Clark Whitehill, who brokered the deal, said: "This looks like getting off to an excellent start with response from customers and potential customers needing this type of skilled, specialised service exceeding best initial expectations".

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