“As I was put into the boat, he cried and said to me ‘It’s alright, little girl. You go. I will stay.’, and as our boat shoved off he threw me a kiss, and that was the last I saw of him.”
—Mary Graham Carmichael Farquarson(Mary Marvin). Married to Daniel Marvin on 12 January 1912, returning to NYC from their honeymoon in Europe.
May 2012
37 posts
Pages are up!
Finally got the different pages up and working!
This should make things a bit easier to sort through. I’ll be adding more shortly.
Aboard the Titanic: Australian billionaire Clive Palmer plans to build Titanic II... I'll believe it when I see it. →
magnificenttitanic.tumblr.com
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17890754
Many daft plans have popped up in recent years, especially after the 1997 film. None ever came to be. There could be more of a chance here as this guy seems to have quite a bit of cash to pull it off, assuming things aren’t overly complicated.
I won’t comment on matters of ethics, whether one should build a ship named after Titanic, whether it’s disrespectul, or tasteful, whether it’s just using Titanic’s name for money, whether it’ll be jined, etc. Those are not matters I care about or that are important to me, especially as they’re mostly just a matter of subjective opinion. If you love it, fine. If you hate it, fine.
Whatever the case may be, I must list a few points for why you should not get overly excited about this:
- As this Titanic II announcement came on the heels of another political announcement of Palmer’s, this could be a publicity stunt of sorts, regardless of whether or not he’s actually going to try to build it.
- Palmer has had a few “issues” in the past, namely an incident where he accused the CIA and Greenpeace of being in cahoots in a giant conspiracy. While this isn’t necessarily directly related to his Titanic II plan, it’s some reason to question his motives and intentions.
- This is surely not going to be an exact “replica”, or even a close one. Palmer wants this ship to actually sail. In order to do it, you have to build ships according to modern safety and construction standards, which don’t exactly allow for ships like Titanic anymore. There will be no boiler rooms or steam engines, no quaint bridge. There will be additional, possibly noticeable navigational and communications equipment. There will be many large lifeboats of the modern design. The design of the very exterior itself couldn’t possibly be exactly the same as the original Titanic.
- Regardless of how they decide the decorate the interior, the interior layout itself would be different to a great extent, as most of Titanic’s cabins were not up to what would be considered an acceptable size today for your average traveler. Then there would be additional rooms in places that would have otherwise been taken up by boiler rooms, bunkers, and uptakes (A small theater could easily fit into the space of one or two boiler rooms).
- Interior decor itself would have to be up to current tastes and codes. Even if they try to stay as close as possible to original designs, there will still be quite noticeable differences from the original Titanic.
There may be other issues that I haven’t covered here that could throw such a project into doubt. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t. The aforementioned issues aren’t a death sentence for such a plan, but they’re enough to keep excitement at bay.
The most important thing to keep in mind in the midst of all this is one simple sentence, seven little words…
I’ll believe it when I see it.
April 2012
19 posts
Titanic II?
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/world/asia/australia-titanic/index.html
I really can’t decide how I feel about this. On one end, I would probably give anything to see it and how she was. But sailing it? Oh hey God/nature/fate/whatever you want to call it, lets try this again!
It seems a bit tacky, a little morbid, to me. And even though I’m saying this, I’m pretty sure I’ll be saving up every single penny I have just to even get a glimpse of it. But lets be real here - what’s going to happen to it after its maiden voyage? Its going to become just another ship making its rounds? Will it ruin this mysterious and intense fascination with the original? Are we all suppose to sail on this replica and have a grand ole’ time, forgetting what happened?
I think sometimes its better to leave things as they are. You cannot remake Titanic. You can build a ship like her, you can fancy it up to look exactly the same, you can give it the same name, but it won’t ever be Titanic.
And the fact that its being built in China bothers me so intensely I can’t even describe it. It has nothing to do with China personally, but Titanic was the pride of Belfast when she was built, her history was there. Having China remake this ship seems a bit offensive.
I’ve always been ecstatic at the idea of making a replica. But never to sail. Even on the historical society forums we’ve discussed the possibility of rebuilding her, but again, never with the intention of sailing. It would make more sense to have her as a museum, docked somewhere(Belfast?), for tours. Have half the ship be for museum guests to stay overnight, make the dining rooms & restaurants fully functional, everything as it was….but never to sail.
Titanic was Titanic, and there will never be another. It seems a bit disrespectful to me to sail this replica.
Any thoughts? Opinions? I’d love to hear them.
And I’m currently writing an article on Ismay which should be up sometime this week. So keep a lookout for it!
Please bear with me while I get this blog in order. I’m having trouble creating tag pages to better organize everything, tumblr seems to not want me to do it.
Thank you for my followers already allowing me to share her story with you!
“The sounds of people drowning are something that I can not describe to you, and neither can anyone else. Its the most dreadful sound, and there is a terrible silence that follows it.”
—Eva Hart, Titanic survivor
RMS Titanic
Owner: The White Star Line (International Mercantile Marine)
Builder: Harland & Wolff in Belfast, Ireland
Dimensions: 882.5 ft Long, 92.5 ft Wide
Weight: 46,328 Tons
Height: 60.5 ft waterline to Boat Deck, 175ft keel to top of funnels, 20 Stories
Yard No.: 401
Top Speed: 23 Knots
Funnels: 4 (3 were functional, one provided ventilation)
Propellers: 3
Furnaces: 159
Boilers: 29 (24 double ended boilers + 5 single ended)
Rivets Used: 3,000,000
Anchors: 2 - 15 tons each
Masts: 2
Cost: $7.5 million to build
Keel Laid: 31 March 1909
Launch Date: 31 May 1911
Sailed: 10 Apr 1912
Sank: 15 Apr 1912 (400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland)
Depth: 2 miles under the ocean
Bow & Stern: 2,000 ft apart
Decks: 9
Cabins: 370 First Class, 168 Second Class, 297 Third Class
On Board: Approx. 2,220 persons
Total Accommodations: 3,547 persons
Lifeboats: 20 total (actually equipped to carry 64)
Lifeboat Total Capacity: 1,178 persons
Survived: 705
