Reuters / Ruben Sprich
Deep-sea expeditions are “very safe” as long as established safety protocols are followed, Ray Dalio said.
“Diving in a classed submersible is no more risky than taking a commercial flight or driving in a car,” he said.
The billionaire investor is the founder of nonprofit initiative OceanX, which is currently planning explorations in Norway’s fjords, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.
Deep-sea exploration has come under a cloud of skepticism and uncertainty in the aftermath of the recent OceanGate submersible tragedy. But billionaire investor Ray Dalio, also the founder of the nonprofit ocean exploration initiative OceanX, has pushed back against the paranoia.
“Manned submersible diving isn’t risky – it’s very safe when well-established protocols, most importantly the certification process, are followed,” the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, said in a lengthy LinkedIn post Wednesday.
“Over the last four decades, no sub that has gone through the certification process has experienced any form of catastrophic event even though more than 2 million dive trips in these vehicles now happen every year. Given this excellent track record, diving in a classed submersible is no more risky than taking a commercial flight or driving in a car,” he added.
Deep-sea exploration has come under intense public scrutiny after US-based OceanGate’s Titan submersible imploded less than two hours after it set out on June 18 to explore the remains of the RMS Titanic located nearly 13,000 feet underwater. All five passengers, including OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush and British billionaire Hamish Harding, were killed.
Several experts have pointed out that the accident appears to have been caused by OceanGate’s poor safety standards. The company had reportedly avoided industry-standard safety tests, used lighter and cheaper materials to build the submersible and dismissed concerns raised by its own staff.
While the tragedy has brought a lot of media attention to risks related to deepwater voyages, such expeditions are safe as long as proper safety standards are met, Dalio said.
‘The world’s largest and most important natural resource’
“But far more importantly, manned sub diving is critical for ocean discovery which is good for humanity because it provides learning about and protecting the world’s largest and most important natural resource. The ocean is needlessly neglected. Less than five percent of it has been explored,” he wrote.
OceanX, co-founded with Dalio’s son, Mark Dalio, was the first team to capture live images of a giant squid – and the first to take a submersible dive to the Antarctic seafloor.
“OceanX’s new ship the OceanXplorer is about to head out on a series of explorations, first to Norway’s fjords and the seamounts of the Azores, and then on to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean,” Dalio said.
Dalio founded Bridgewater in 1975, a hedge fund that went on to become the world’s biggest under his leadership, with $124 billion of assets under management in 2023, according to Forbes. He recently retired from the board of directors with an estimated personal net worth of $19 billion.
As author of ‘Principles’, a guide to his management and investment philosophy, Dalio often weighs in on financial and economic matters. Two weeks ago, he hailed India as the next big investing opportunity, saying its economy is on the verge of a China-style transformation.
He has also been a bearish voice on the stock market this year – warning the US is at the beginning of a debt crisis and forecasting worse times ahead.