What Really Sank the Titanic:: New Forensic Discoveries

by Jennifer Hooper McCarty, Tim Foecke

Overview

Was the ship doomed by a faulty design?

Was the hull's steel too brittle?

Was the captain negligent in the face of repeated warnings?

On the night of April 14, 1912, the "unsinkable" RMS Titanic, with over 2,200 passengers onboard, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and plunged to a watery grave. For nearly a century, the shocking loss has haunted the world. Now the same CSI techniques that are used to solve modern murder cases have been applied to the sinking of history's most famous ship. Researchers Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke draw on their participation in expeditions to the ship's wreckage and experiments on recovered Titanic materials to build a compelling new scenario. The answers will astound you.. . .

Grippingly written, What Really Sank the Titanic is illustrated with fascinating period photographs and modern scientific evidence reflecting the authors' intensive study of Titanic artifacts for more than ten years. In an age when forensics can catch killers, this book does what no other book has before: fingers the culprit in one of the greatest tragedies ever.

"A fascinating trail of historical forensics."

--James R. Chiles, author of Inviting Disaster>/I>

"An essential facet of Titanic history. Five stars!"

--Charles Pellegrino, author of Her Name Titanic

With 16 pages of photos

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806535975
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	03/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jennifer Hooper McCarty completed her master's and doctoral degrees in Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, specializing in the characterization of historic materials. Her dissertation formed the first complete analysis of the metallurgy of the Titanic rivets. Following her graduate research at both the Smithsonian Institution and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, she worked as a researcher at Oxford University. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Tim Foecke earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science from the University of Minnesota, specializing in fracture of metals. Since 1991, he has been a staff materials scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and since 2001 has also been an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He has performed failure analysis and forensic studies on the Titanic, USS Arizona, CSS Hunley, and the World Trade Center collapse, among other disasters. He resides in Damascus, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Part I The Background 1

1 The Yard 3

2 Building the Great Leviathan: A Guide to Titanic's Details 7

3 What the Titanic Was Made Of: The Science of Iron 24

4 The Riveting Process 38

5 Harland & Wolff's Protocols 51

Part II The Facts 61

6 April 14, 1912-What Are the Facts? 63

7 Materials Investigation: The Goal of the Recent Expeditions 87

8 Distilling the Facts: What Are the Possible Scenarios? 99

Part III The Analysis 107

9 The 300-Foot Gash 109

10 Hull Steel = Brittle Steel? 115

11 Does the Answer Lie with the Rivets? 140

12 The Collision Scenario 162

Part IV The Rest of the Story 173

13 Other Tidbits You May Have Heard About 175

14 As the Metal Rusts: What Is Happening to the Wreck of the Titanic Now? 187

Notes 203

Bibliography 211

Glossary 221

Who's Who in What Really Sank the Titanic 227

Acknowledgments 237

Index 241