[BITList] titanic

[HUGH]

Colin,

We need look no further than the keys for why she sank.  Despite its wee brass plate, one of them will be the semi-mythical key of the closing plate, ie, the plate just above the TT left off to allow people in the short way BEFORE the ship is launched. Research by social scientists at the University of Arizona has predicted that use of it AFTER the launch could cause problems, hence the Titanic.

Steel rivets are machine forged, more or less so as to become much like a blunt round headed nail as the men said. I've no idea how wrought iron rivets were made. I spent the first year of my working life in a shipyard that had no welders that I recall, and the sound of riveting and caulking, hand and pneumatic, was a feature of my childhood (it's caulking of plate edges and rivet heads that makes the ship watertight, not just the riveting).  Most of my McIntyre ancestors were riveters. Hand riveting was never a second class standby method, not quite kosher, but handy for places the hydraulic riveter couldn't get into. The hydraulic riveter "clamp" was only useful in the very few areas that allowed its bulk in - every rivet head on every deck, and the outside of a ship's hull, was made by hand.

Any detached plate lying around on the sea bed would, of necessity, have no rivets in it, but who can tell what the missing rivets were made of?  A poor choice of rivet suppliers did not sink the Titanic.  There seems evidence that rivets we would be too clever to use nowadays were used in her construction, but I've seen no evidence that these rivets caused a catastrophic failure of the hull.  It's all surmise from bystanders seeking something exciting to say that hasn't been said before.

As I said, it was the keys.

Hugh.


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