Stockton Rush was a 'cowboy' who 'cut one too many corners,' says the yacht broker trying to sell an old OceanGate sub

Rebecca Cohen
Updated ·2 min read
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  • A yacht broker trying to sell an old OceanGate sub says Stockton Rush "cut one too many corners."

  • Steve Reoch told Insider that a colleague said Rush would implode on one of his missions.

  • Rush's Titan submersible catastrophically imploded on a trip to the Titanic shipwreck last month.

An expedition-yacht broker who has been trying to sell a submersible owned by OceanGate for the past five years said that he developed a relationship with OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush ever since he was first contacted about the sale but that the late founder "cut too many corners" in his work.

Rush's now-notorious Titan submersible catastrophically imploded last month on a mission to the Titanic shipwreck. It was widely reported that Rush failed to properly class his vessel — meaning the vessel wasn't assessed following industry standards.

"It was a terrible tragedy what happened," Steve Reoch told Insider. "But it is what everybody in the industry feared — exactly what happened."

Multiple industry experts have since come forward to say they had warned Rush about the make of his submersible and the importance of classing the vessel. Those professionals feared "the worst, and it's come about," Reoch said.

Reoch said that he formed a relationship with the OceanGate CEO while trying to sell sub and that Rush was a "fun guy to be with, but cut one too many corners" in his work.

He said the difference between the Titan and the Antipodes — the sub he is trying to sell for $795,000 — was that the Antipodes was classed, whereas the Titan was not.

Reoch told Insider that he spoke to one of the people who helped build the Antipodes and that they echoed the fears of others when it came to the Titan sub.

"It's so eerie to me," Reoch said, adding that the submersible builder repeatedly told him that "his biggest business fear was Stockton imploding or exploding, and he was right."

"He said this because he wasn't building to class," Reoch said.

An open letter written by industry leaders and explorers in 2018 also warned Rush that his decision to forgo the assessment could be catastrophic, according to The New York Times.

Reoch said the Antipodes builder described Rush as a "cowboy, very smart, and charismatic, but hell-bent on building the submersible his way."

Read the original article on Insider