I know this was all mentioned a while ago... but it just struck me... that ship was "sunk" by a 10" x 4" hole?
Was there zero damage control attempted?
In the DC trainer I went through ( a section cut from a real warship and set up with water jackets etc to allow flooding through various holes, cracks, punctures etc) we were able to effectively seal off holes nearly that size quickly, and with VERY unsophisticated materials! (Wooden plugs hammered in mainly!) At worst one would have had to set up a splinter box and use shoring to hold it in place... again, not a difficult operation....
Sounds like that is NOT the whole story....