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EuroWire – January 2006 24 EuroWire – J ly 2008
Transat lant ic Cable
Popped rivets challenge bow-gash as an
explanation for the sinking of the Titanic
The general assumption has long been that an iceberg tore a
huge gash in the starboard hull of the Titanic, which sank in
under three hours in the early hours of 15th April 1912.
The discovery, in 1985, of Titanic’s resting-place two miles down
in the North Atlantic opened up new avenues of inquiry. An
expedition of 1996 found not a large gash but, obscured by mud,
six narrow slits where bow plates appeared to have parted from
the hull. Naval experts speculated that rivets had popped along
the seams, admitting seawater under high pressure.
Writing in the International Herald Tribune on the 96th
anniversary of the catastrophe, William J Broad picked up the
story with the involvement, as of 1997, of Timothy Foecke of
the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal
agency in Gaithersburg, Maryland. A specialist in metal fracture,
Mr Foecke analysed two rivets salvaged from the Titanic and
found about three times more slag than occurs in modern
wrought iron. Slag, a glassy residue of smelting, could make
rivets brittle and prone to fracture. (“Weak Rivets a Possible Key
to Titanic’s Doom,” 15th April)
A team of scientists including Mr Foecke and Jennifer Hooper
McCarty, whose doctoral thesis at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Maryland, analysed Titanic’s rivets, went on to study
48 rivets recovered over two decades from the ship’s grave and
found many riddled with high concentrations of slag. In early
1998, the marine forensic experts announced their tentative
findings.
Mr Broad wrote: “The scientists found that the ship’s builder,
Harland and Wolff, of Belfast, struggled for years to obtain
adequate supplies of rivets and riveters to build the world’s
three biggest ships at once: the Titanic and two sisters, Olympic
and Britannic. Each required three million rivets, and shortages
peaked during construction of the Titanic.”
The account from that point, as pieced together from company
and British government documents, has Harland and Wolff
reaching beyond its customary suppliers of rivet iron to smaller
forges employing workers of less experience and skill. Mr Broad
wrote, “Adding to the threat, the company, in buying iron for
Titanic’s rivets, ordered No 3 bar, known as ‘best,’ not No 4, known
as ‘best-best,’ the scientists found.”
According to Mr Foecke, “Some material the company bought
was not rivet quality.”The damage to the hull, he said, “ends close
to where the rivets transition from iron to steel.”
Harland and Wolff also faced shortages of skilled riveters,
according to archive papers cited by the scientists. Ms McCarty
told the Herald Tribune that for a half-year, from late 1911 to
April 1912, when Titanic set sail, the company’s board addressed
the shortfalls at every meeting.
The conclusions of the marine scientists are vigorously ❈ ❈
rejected by Harland and Wolff, still very much in business in
Belfast. A company spokesman pointed out that Olympic,
sister ship to the Titanic, sailed without incident for 24 years
until retirement. Another Harland and Wolff source, a former
official of the company, said that big shipyards often had to
scramble for parts and workers – and do, still, apparently.
On one recent job, he said, Harland and Wolff had to look to
Romania to supply welders.
The marine scientists argue the case for faulty rivets, and
detail their archive findings, in “What Really Sank the Titanic,”
a new book from Citadel Press. James Alexander Carlisle,
whose grandfather was a Titanic riveter, bluntly refutes the
rivet theory on the website
Mr Carlisle wrote, “On the Titanic’s port side there is a
three-metre dent, caused by the ship hitting the seabed. The
dent has caused a 270-degree bend in the steel plates. This is
most probably caused by the ship trying to bend after hitting
the sea bottom. All rivets are in their original place.”
Declares this voice of the opposition, “BAD RIVETS NOWAY!”
NAFTA and the neighbours
President Bush, contemplating a
tattered legacy, tries to check erosion
of his free-trade policies
“We talked a lot about [the North American Free Trade
Agreement], and of course we agreed that this is not the time
to even think about amending it or cancelling it,” said President
Felipe Calderón, of Mexico, in the presence of President George
W Bush, of the United States, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper,
of Canada. The Mexican president added, “This is the time to
strengthen and reinvigorate this free trade agreement among
our countries.”
Perhaps. But the three counterparts have to know that their
assertion of economic progress since 1994, when NAFTA was
inaugurated, is not wholly embraced in any of their countries.
Indeed, after two days of meetings with Mr Bush in New Orleans,
in April, under the auspices of the United States Chamber of
Commerce, the Mexican and Canadian leaders made a point
of saying that, while they affirm their own faith in the pact that
has eliminated tariffs and other restrictions on products traded
among the US, Canada, and Mexico, they cannot bind their
successors.
Nor, of course, can the American president speak for his
successor, who will be elected on 4th November and take office
on 1st January 2009. But, while Mr Bush seems comfortable with
the idea of quitting the Oval Office with much other important
business on the desk, viz the Iraq war, he is clearly intent on
shoring up his free-trade policy, which had seemed set to
become one of the less contentious holdovers of his presidency.
Over the months leading up to the election, Mr Bush has been
increasingly critical of the two candidates for the Democratic
nomination, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack
Obama, both of whom have repeatedly pledged themselves to
seek renegotiation of the terms of NAFTA.