What Sunk The Titanic

Riveting Stuff

Never pass up a cheesey pun I say! I always thought the hull smashed like a crystal glass when Celine Dion hit that High Note.

The good ship Titanic, the ocean liner of our dreams and nightmares has been studied from a new angle and it seems she set sail with substandard rivets.

Adding to the threat, the company relied on cheap materials, scientists say. They found many rivets riddled with high concentrations of slag, a glassy residue of smelting, that can make rivets brittle and prone to fracture. The company also faced shortages of skilled riveters, according to archive papers.

Shipbuilders of the day were moving from iron to steel rivets, which were stronger. And machines could install them, improving workmanship and avoiding labor problems.

The scientists discovered that Harland & Wolff only used steel rivets on Titanic's central hull, where stresses were expected to be greatest. Iron rivets were chosen for the ship's stern and bow. And the bow, as fate would have it, is where the iceberg struck. Studies of the wreck show that six seams opened up in the ship's bow plates. And the damage, one of the scientists noted, "ended close to where the rivets transition from iron to steel".

The scientists argue that better rivets would have probably kept the Titanic afloat long enough for rescuers to have arrived before the icy plunge, saving hundreds of lives.

The last bit there's pretty depressing. The ship went down in 3hours - which is about the length of Jim Cameron's bloated hyper-bombastic epic.