Given the media coverage and it's accorded prominence, the RMS Titanic and the tragic story of it's maiden and last voyage has found a place in popular culture. Truth is a lot of us are aware of the Titanic story but what most of us are unaware of is the fact that the Titanic wasn't the only White Star Line project that shared that fate.
At the start of the twentieth century, the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast commenced the construction of three iconic ocean liners for the White Star Line and this trio would be named, the Olympic-Class Ocean Liners. Among them were the Olympic, the Britannic and the popular Titanic.
The purpose of building these liners were to create the largest and most luxurious passenger liners in the world and give the White Star Line an advantage over transatlantic passenger trade of it's time.
Now anyone with a good business acumen would confess that trying to harness the potentials of a lucrative market was not a bad idea at all but the focus of this writing was about the shared fate of these liners.
The first to be completed of these liners was the RMS Olympic which left the yard on the 31st of May, 1911 and had it's maiden voyage commence on the 14th of June, 1911.
In size, the Olympic was 882 ft 9 in length, 175 ft in height and a beam of 92 ft 9. That was enough to house it's 9 decks which carried 2,435 passengers and 950 crew members. With it's power source from 24 double-ended (six furnace) and 5 single-ended (three furnace) Scotch boilers, two four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engines and one low-pressure turines all producing a total of 65,000 horse power at maximum revolutions. The Olympic was recorded to reach a maximum speed of 24.2 knots.
The Olympic was the Olympic-Class ocean Liners to fulfill the objective of being the largest ocean liner in the world. It enjoyed this position for two periods during 1910–13, and lost it when the Titanic was completed. However, the short career span of the Titanic gave way again for the Olympic to be the world largest passenger ship until the German SS Imperator went into service in May 1912.
About fate, the Olympic was the only ship of the Olympic-class ocean liners to escape sinking while in service, infact it served the longest for 24 years before it got sold for scrap in 1936 and completely demolished in 1937
After the construction of the Olympic, the next to be completed on the 2nd of April 1912, was the Titanic.
In size, the Titanic was; 882 ft 9 in length, 175 ft in height. Housing 9 decks for 2,435 passengers and 892 crew members. It's source of power being a 24 double-ended and five single-ended boilers feeding two reciprocating steam engines for the wing propellers, and a low-pressure turbine for the centre propeller with an output of 46,000 horse power. The Titanic was recorded to reach the maximum speed of 23 knots.
At it's completion, the Titanic earned the title of the world's largest and most luxurious passenger liner in the world and bore it until the end of it's short lived career.
Nicknamed the unsinkable, the Titanic was regarded to be strong and reliable, it's first-class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with a gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants, and opulent cabin. The Titanic however didn't live long, it collided with an iceberg during it's maiden voyage and sank, killing 1500 people on April 14, 1914.
The third and last to join the fleet was the HMHS Britannic. Completed in 1915, after the Titanic disaster, the Britannic was constructed with lessons from the mishap. At such, she was designed to be the safest of the three.
In characteristics, the Britannic was first designed to be similar to her sister ships but some things were altered during it's construction due to the loss of the Titanic. However, the Britannic measured 175 ft in height, and it with a tonnage of 48,158, she surpassed her older sisters in terms of internal volume. Propelled by a combined system of two triple expansion steam engines which powered the three-bladed outboard wing propellers whilst a steam turbine used steam exhausted from the two reciprocating engines to power the central four-bladed propeller giving a maximum speed of 23 knots.
The Britannic although first built to serve as a luxury passenger liner, served as a hospital boat during the first world war.
On the morning of 21 November 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a naval mine of the Imperial German Navy near the Greek island of Kea and sank 55 minutes later. The Britannic went down with 30 people, the least fatal of the tragedies of the Olympic-class ocean liners.
The sinking of two out of the three liners of the Olympic-class ocean liners would be what most will refer to as a fruitless venture and the creating of the disasters of the century but that would be only looking on the darker side of things. On a brighter side, the mishaps of these two liners especially the Titanic revolutionized marine engineering industry in various ways and although the lessons came hard, the White Star Line and other liner companies in the world took them and built safer liners.
© Ifiokobong Etuk (KING of the QUILL)
With data obtained from Wikipedia.
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