Queen Elizabeth 1

1 Pages 328 Words

What sank the Mary Rose?


The story of the Mary Rose was a real disaster for Henry VIII, especially as wooden ships don’t normally sink.
This ship was his favourite ship – but just how did it sink? It was built in 1547, and sunk in battle with the French navy; it was recently raised from the seabed in 1982. There are 6 theories to this story


THEORY 1
Did the French navy hit the Mary Rose? However there was not any obvious cannonball marks, but there had been some repairs because there was a 5-inch hole in the side the hull. Henry VIII had been fiddling with the boat before it set sale because he wanted it to be the best ship ever. He fitted eight new bronze cannons, which was an extra 8-20 tons. People did not know how to calculate stability so it could have been unstable. Just having extra weight on board alone would not have sunk the ship.

THEORY 2
Was the crew really drunk? We found out they had been drinking to celebrate the new ship the crew were really panicking as well because they did not Know how to swim.

THEORY 3
The captain had no idea on how to skipper the ship and the ship was badly handled, this was true

THEORY 4
Water may have got into the gun flaps because they were left open. For each 1sq metre of water that came through the flaps would equal to 1 ton in weight, this means the ship so it would flood very quickly and possible become unstable.

THEORY 5
There was only meant to be 415 men on board, but there turned out to be 715. The calculation is that for every additional 10 men this would equal 1 ton.

THEORY 6
A strong gust of wind could of tipped it when the ship was turning, but the most probably explanation is a combination of all of the above theory which resulted in the sinking of the Mary Rose....