Sinking of the RMS Titanic the hull plates. This suggests that the iron rivets along the plate seams snapped off or popped open to create narrow gaps through which water flooded. An engineer from "Titanic"s builders, Harland and Wolff, suggested this scenario at the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry following the disaster but his view was discounted. "Titanic"s discoverer Robert Ballard has commented that the assumption that the ship had suffered a major breach was "a by-product of the mystique of the "Titanic". No one could believe that the great ship was sunk by a little sliver." Faults in the ship's hull may have been a
Lifeboats of the RMS Titanic were taken to the White Star Line's Pier 59 in New York, where souvenir hunters soon stripped them of much of their equipment. The "Titanic" nameplates were removed by White Star Line workmen and the boats were inventoried by the C.M. Lane Lifeboat Co. of Brooklyn. They were assessed for salvage at a collective value of £930 ($4,972) as the only salvageable items recovered from "Titanic", they may have been taken back to England aboard "Olympic", which left New York on 23 May 1912, before either being destroyed or quietly redistributed to other vessels. Although nothing now remains of the