SALVAGE POSSIBILITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1942, Page 6

SALVAGE POSSIBILITIES

LINER NORMANDIE

RUGBY, February 16

Some of the problems which would face American engineers in salvaging the liner Normandie were discussed today by a United States expert in a broadcast from New York. In view of her great importance,, more than an ordinary effort would be made to put her.into commission again if that were at all possible, he said,

Th\Normandie had. been tied up for over two years in dock. When the fire broke out in the upper decks, the lower part of the ship was isolated as much as possible and flooded. This had the effect of.upsettir.g the ship's stability, and as she listed to port this large volume of water dragged her over. Heroic work was done to compensate for her list, both by pumping water into the starboard side and pumping it out of the port side. All efforts, however, proved in vain. The outgoing tide set the ship down on the silt of the bottom, and she rolled over.

"The only way in which she can be salvaged," the expert said, "is, first, to seal the ship airtight, section by section, and then force in air to drive the water out of the port side compartments so that she floats off the bottom on her port side. Then,, if she doesn't right herself, due to her inherent stability, flooding of some starboard bilges would be resorted to.

"The hard part of this job is sealing the ship, airtight. A determining factor may be whether the Normandie's engine-rooms are at present flooded with salt water, and whether being under water for the length of time that is required to right and salvage her would ruin her giant turbines, with all their auxiliary pumps, boilers v blowers, and the like.

"Salvaging this liner is a major engineering job, but the world's best engineering brains from both sides of the Atlantic will be called in on it, and-if it is humanly possible the great ship will be saved."—B.O.W.