SPIN, 1912, Conspiracy Theory and The Titanic

            Rummaging around the books section of a charity shop recently unearthed two unexpected and apparently unrelated finds. “Hidden Agenda’s” by John Pilger is a disconcerting inventory of the institutional duplicity and dishonesty foisted on the mostly right thinking and decent populations of the planet. It postulates, amongst other things, that “they” have formed our versions of key historical events and that our knowledge of things past has been coloured by the wealthy and powerful to suit their own malodorous agendas. This confirmation of a long suspected truth only serves to intensify a sense of helplessness. What can an appalled citizen really do to change the moral compass of a morally bankrupt ruling class? A bit of a rant perhaps but Mr Pilger has that effect.

            "Titanic’s Last Secrets” is not another bandwagon rehashing of old theories. Author Brad Matsen and divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler, colossi in the world of nautical forensics have finally ended any sensible speculation. Voyaging 2½ miles down onto the wreck, they discovered previously unseen pieces of the keel. These were crucial in understanding what really happened and the structural integrity or lack thereof of the vessel.

            Harland & Wolff designer Thomas Andrews specified 1¼ inch steel for the hull. Overruled by the owners worried about coal consumption he was forced to substitute 1-inch plate. This conformed to the regulations then in force. Infamously, these same laws were used to calculate the number of lifeboats needed on board. The Belfast shipyard was building the biggest ships the world had ever seen using the same steel thickness found in significantly smaller vessels. That this was bad engineering practice was fully understood by Andrews, but not by the commissioning company, The White Star Line or The British Board of Trade who would certify the Titanic seaworthy.

            One Thousand Five Hundred and Four people died because of the inadequacy of the steel used to build the unsinkable “Ship of Dreams”. The hull broke at an angle of only 11 degrees, not as contempory accounts suggested or Cameron’s film depicts around 55 degrees, the thin metal buckling and snapping under the weight of seawater flooding into the breach. Had the hull been stronger the stricken vessel would have remained afloat long enough for all souls on board to be saved. Harland & Wolff at the behest of a greedy owner, under the control of an inadequately dynamic government agency had built a deeply flawed ship.

            This admission was unthinkable in an age when Britain’s maritime power was vital to the national interest. The enquiry into the disaster therefore failed to ask the right questions of the right people and arrived at the wrong conclusions.      

           It seems Mr Pilger has a point.

Captain E. J. Smith, Owner J. Bruce Ismay and Designer Thomas Andrews