Titanic Gazette Souvenir Shop

Titanic Gazette Souvenir Shop

Titanic Gazette Souvenir Shop

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Only Ship That Did Not Sink


The Olympic construction began at Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland. The idea, to build three huge ships, was made at a dinner party. The dinner party was attended by Joseph Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line and Lord Pirrie, the President of Harland and Wolff. They planned to build the Olympic, Titanic and the Gigantic.
Olympic was starting to be built up when the Titanic started to be built. Soon, the two sisters were almost complete. When the Olympic was launched in 1910, it was just an empty hull. The Olympic went to the dry dock. The dry dock is where they drain water out of the dock, so that they could paint ships and put on the propellers. Once the water was back in, they built the inside of the Olympic.
On October 30, 1911, Olympic set sail on her maiden voyage, carrying 2,200 passengers, including Violet Jessop. Olympic’s captain was E.J. Smith. The Olympic was pulling out of the dock, when she hit the H.M.S. Hawk, but the watertight doors saved Olympic from sinking. The Olympic was repaired and made it to New York. The Olympic was on her 13th voyage when she lost a propeller blade and was towed back for repairs. It is said that she got the Titanic’s distress signal, but they thought it was a joke. The Olympic sailed for 6 more years until it was made into a Troop Ship and rescued many crew from sinking ships during WW1 and was nicknamed 'Old Reliable'. After the war, they found a dent on the waterline which had been caused by a torpedo that had refused to explode. It was transformed back into a Ocean Liner and made thousands of voyages across the Atlantic Ocean before the Cunard Line took over the White Star Line and got rid of any symbols of White Star Line greatness. It was sold
for 100,000 pounds and was torn apart and sold for scrap. Most of the Olympic is in Scotland at the Swan Hotel. The Olympic and the Titanic were Identical twins except for the people on the two ships. It cost 7.5 million dollars to build the Olympic.

No comments: