SALVAGING THE LUSITANIA.
AN ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TASK. Will the Lusitania ever be raised?The question has arisen from time to time ever since .she was torpedoed off the Irish coast .in May, 1915. Despite some of the almost miraculous things done by modern salvage methods, like the discovery of the Lutine 38ft. down in the sand more than 100 years after she had been sunk, Mr. David Masters declares in his book on “The Wonders of Salvage” that the chances of salvaging the Lusitania are almost negligible. The sheer weight of the seas, Mr. Masters points out, quickly obliterates man’s handiwork, and the Lusitania probably ceased to be a ship years ago. It is extremely likely that the tremendous pressure to which she was subjected at the depth of 288 ft. long ago crushed her flat. ■ The liner’s 30-ton safe, full of valuables, would be strong enough, one might think, to resist the pressure of the sea; but oven the chance of salving the safe alone from the liner’s strong room do not appeal to Mr. Masters as being worth the risk. One of the schemes suggested for the salvaging of the Lusitania sounds like some of the wild inventions put before the Munitions Inventions Department during the war. It was propounded seriously by an American, who explained that he would use -a submarine, which would fire torpedoes right through the Lusitania. Each torpedo would carry a steel cable. AVhen sufficient cables bad been fired through the hull they would he picked up on the other side, brought to the surface, and the wreck .finis Tiffed from the depth. Could anything- be simpler —in theory? Unfortunately Mr. Masters, speaking as a.n expert, declares that the ingenious scheme was quite impracticable. A rub-the Lusitania, remains, and is likely to remain, where she sank more than nine years ago.
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Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 October 1924, Page 6
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306SALVAGING THE LUSITANIA. Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 8 October 1924, Page 6
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