Titanic

It is a long article of faith, almost a Titanic dogma, the iceberg ripped an almost 300-foot long gash in the ship's starboard side. Well, the cold, hard truth is, there is no "gash."

The myth began with numerous highly sensationalistic illustrations that appeared in newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic after the disaster, illustrating "how" the iceberg damaged the Titanic.

It became something approaching gospel when Walter Lord repeated it in "A Night to Remember." But Walter dropped the ball badly on that one, because he had the evidence to the contrary right in front of him all along. In May of 1912. Edward Wilding, a marine architect for Harland and Wolff, in a brilliant piece of theoretical engineering, demonstrated for the British Board of Trade Inquiry that, from the reports of the observed rate of flooding in all six the breached compartments, the total area in those compartments open to the sea was approximately 12 square feet. This would have meant that a continuous cut in the Titanic's hull 300 feet long would have been only a half-inch wide for its entire length--a difficult feat for a cutting torch, let alone an iceberg. It wasn't until 1996 that ultrasonic probes conducted by Paul Mathias were able to conclusively establish that there was no gash: the damage done was indeed a series of bent plates, split seams and small holes--the total area open to the sea being just a little over 12 square feet. I think we can put that one to bed for good now. The seabed.