The impact with the iceberg was long thought to have produced a huge opening in "Titanic" hull, "not less than in length, above the level of the keel", as one writer later put it. At the British inquiry following the accident, Edward Wilding (chief naval architect for Harland and Wolff), calculating on the basis of the observed flooding of forward compartments forty minutes after the collision, testified that the area of the hull opened to the sea was "somewhere about ". He also stated that "I believe it must have been in places, not a continuous rip", but that the different openings must have extended along an area of around 300 feet, to account for the flooding in several compartments. The findings of the inquiry state that the damage extended over a length of about 300 feet, and hence many subsequent writers followed this more vague statement. Modern ultrasound surveys of the wreck have found that the actual damage to the hull was very similar to Wilding's statement, consisting of six narrow openings covering a total area of only about . According to Paul K. Matthias, who made the measurements, the damage consisted of a "series of deformations in the starboard side that start and stop along the hull ... about above the bottom of the ship".