Plans for Titanic replica set sail as Australian billionaire avoids sink jinx

A computer-rendered image of the exterior of Titanic II, due to launch in ...

A computer-rendered image of the exterior of Titanic II, due to launch in 2016. Image: Blue

Star Line.

 Mining tycoon to make exact copy of doomed ocean liner for journey across the Atlantic – but don't ask if it's unsinkable

 

It looks like the Titanic. It is meant to feel like the Titanic. But the Australian billionaire who on Tuesday unveiled blueprints for a successor ship to the doomed ocean liner is confident his dream project will not sink like the Titanic.

At a news conference in New York, mining tycoon Clive Palmer said his ambitious plans to launch a copy of the Titanic and sail her across the Atlantic would be a tribute to those who built and backed the original.

“We will complete the journey. We will sail into New York on the ship they designed,” he said at the event being held inside the Intrepid aircraft carrier that is now a museum in the city.

But Palmer, a jovial and brash mogul who likes to style himself "professor", refused to be drawn into predicting that his new boat would be “unsinkable” – and thus avoided repeating an act of hubris that the backers of the first Titanic famously made. “Anything will sink if you put a hole in it,” Palmer admitted of Titanic II. But he joked that due to global warming the risks of travelling through the waters near the Arctic circle had lessened considerably. “There are not so many icebergs in the North Atlantic these days,” he said.

But the main designer of the new ship, Markku Kanerva, did skirt the line of giving the project a small hostage to fortune. “I can assure you, from the safety point of view, it will be absolutely the most safe cruise ship in the world when it is launched,” he said.

The outline of Titanic II is an almost exact match to the original ship, which struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912. That means its silhouette as it travels across the waves will be virtually indistinguishable from the first ship, complete with four rear-slanted funnels.

Titanic II is set for launch in 2016 and will mostly mimic the same route from Europe to Americas. Already 40,000 applications have been submitted to be part of the maiden voyage in what is surely a triumph of hope over experience – and a sign of the clever marketing campaign that lies behind the project.

In New York a throng of journalists were treated to a video presentation of the Titanic II, set to soaring and jaunty music and animated images of guests aboard the new vessel decked out in Edwardian splendour and looking like extras from Downton Abbey, the hit TV series – which opened with news breaking of the first Titanic’s dreadful fate. Palmer said that guests aboard the new ship would have the option of wearing period costume.

Australian tycoon Clive Palmer talks about his plan for building a successor to the Titanic. Photograph: Don EmmertaAFP/Getty Images

Perhaps nervous about the idea of reminding people of the suffering and agony of the world’s most famous maritime disaster, Palmer was careful to bring out a descendant of a Titanic survivor to endorse the project. Helen Benziger was a granddaughter of Molly Brown, a socialite who became famous for persuading a lifeboat to turn around and search for survivors. She heartily backed the new venture. “Bringing this ship back? I don’t know the words,” she said. “It is a chance to go back in time.”
But the Titanic II itself will be – hopefully – less prone to sinking in such dramatic fashion. It will have a crew of 900 looking after some 2,435 passengers. Just like the original Titanic the new craft will boast a Turkish Baths, a smoking room, a grand staircase and a gymnasium. It is even split into three different classes, replicating the original ship where poor immigrants took steerage while the highest echelons of Edwardian society enjoyed luxury in first class. Palmer said the guests would be segregated into the different classes just like on the Titanic, though he claimed he wanted to journey in steerage because – just like in James Cameron’s movie Titanic – that was where the fun people would be travelling. “I will be in third class. I will enjoy it,” he claimed.
Unlike the original, however, Titanic II will feature a modern hospital, a helicopter landing pad, full air-conditioning and access to high-speed internet. Also, unlike the first ship, it has more than enough lifeboats and evacuation equipment for all passengers and crew should the unthinkable happen and history repeat itself. It was a point that Palmer was careful to dwell on. “They are very safe,” he said of the fleet of lifeboats that Titanic II will carry. “They are modernised. They are enclosed. You could go around the world in them,” he said.

The third-class dining room on the Titanic II, as illustrated in a computer-generated picture. Image: Blue Star Line

An image of the grand staircase in the Titanic II, a successor to the doomed cruise ship, due to launch in 2016. Image: Blue Star Line

In another departure from the original story the Titanic II is being built, not in the proud boatyards of Belfast, but in the Jinling shipyard in China. However, just as the Titanic was seen as a symbol of the power of British imperialism and the height of early twentieth-century modernism, perhaps being manufactured just outside Nanjing is an equally apt metaphor for how times have changed in just over 100 years.
Palmer said that there was huge demand for the Titanic II’s maiden voyage. He said more than a dozen eager customers offering to pay up to a million dollars to snag a first class cabin. But he was less eager to reveal details of the cost of building the ship. Palmer founded Blue Star Line just to build the boat and he has ploughed part of his own fortune into it. “I’ve got enough money to pay for it,” he said when asked if he needed to borrow to raise funds. “Cost is not what it is all about.”
It is also just the latest in a long series of unusual ventures that the Australian businessman has taken on. Though he is a major player in the mining industry, Palmer also owns golf courses and vacation resorts. Previously he has entertained the idea of building Zeppelin airships. His lavish lifestyle includes 100 vintage cars, 150 race horses, five private jets and a large collection of dinosaur fossils. But Palmer shook off criticism that Titanic II seemed like a personal vanity project rather than a solid business idea. “What’s eccentric about building a ship?” he said.

Source: Guardian UK