Sir, - I was interested to read the report in The Irish Times of April 9th. It claimed that the "Titanic" was sunk by six cuts about as wide as a human hand, and not by a huge gash which has been thought in the past to have made the great ship sink.
My father was a director in a firm of shipping agents in Tyneside and often had to sort out the problems caused by ship collisions. Sometimes a ship would sink, and he would say that he could never understand why the ship had not been carrying a collision mat. It seems that it is lowered over the side and then becomes pressed into the hole by the inflow of water, at least partially sealing it off.
If the holes in the "Titanic" were indeed so small, then some collision mats might have saved the ship. Could they have been improvised, e.g. from tarpaulin? Perhaps one of your readers might know if this would have been a feasible solution, and whether or not such mats are still in use. - Yours, etc.,
Campbellstown,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.