[BITList] The Unsinkable Titanic

[HUGH]

I gave the subject TV programme 20 minutes to straighten up and fly right before switching off and going on to more useful things.  They spent half the 20 minutes tracing the path of the iceberg from 1910 when it calved (so they said), and the other half displaying scant knowledge of shipbuilding.

She sailed, they said, after all the plates, etc, had been proved watertight - a new one on me.  And the recent discovery that wrought iron rivets had been used in some areas was interpreted as being somehow connected with the use of hand riveting (it being an inferior process, according to them) instead of hydraulic riveting.  In fact, hydraulic riveting (using giant G clamp-type riveters) was limited to those areas where there was room to employ it, mostly off the hull, certainly never where the hull curved or where access was tight, and much of the hull was curved or awkwardly arranged.  My grandfather and his two brothers worked as riveters, and I don't think they ever saw a hydraulic machine.  I wanted to stay with it to see if she had engines, but it was not to be.

Hugh.
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