![]() In May 1918, while ferrying troops across the English Channel, her crew spotted U-103 on the surface, and she rammed and sunk the submarine before it could fire its torpedoes. After the United States entered the war in 1917, Olympic shifted to transporting American troops. To protect her from German U-boats, she was painted with "dazzle" camouflage which made it difficult for attacking subs to estimate her speed and heading. In 1916-17, Olympic was chartered by Canada to carry soldiers from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Britain. Carrying 6000 troops at a time, Olympic made multiple runs between Britain and the Mediterranean in support of the Gallipoli campaign. In May 1915, she was requisitioned by the British Admiralty, stripped of her peacetime fittings and armed with 12-pound cannon and 4.7-inch guns. All of these changes gave Olympic a gross registered tonnage of 46,359.ĭuring World War I, Olympic saw extensive service as a troop transport. And of course, more lifeboats were added to ensure the safety of the passengers and crew. More rooms with private baths were also added to the Olympic since these fancy accommodations had proven popular with passengers on the Titanic. To correct this design flaw, Harland & Wolff extended the watertight bulkheads to the top of the hull and added an inner watertight skin to the boiler and engine rooms to create a double hull. Although Titanic had six watertight compartments, the bulkheads between them did not extend to the top of the hull, meaning that as one compartment flooded, water flowed into the next, ultimately causing Titanic to sink. Six months after the Titanic disaster, Olympic returned to Belfast for a refit. Her interior was a rich mix of styles, and according to one account, “You may sleep in a bed depicting one ruler’s fancy, breakfast under another dynasty altogether, lunch under a different flag and furniture scheme, play cards or smoke, or indulge in music under three other monarchs." She could carry over 2500 passengers in three classes of service, and her features included multiple dining rooms, smoking rooms, libraries, a gymnasium and a carved grand staircase. Passengers aboard the Olympic were amazed by her size and opulence. Olympic’s maiden voyage was from Southampton to New York in June 1911. For comparison, the Viking Star, a small cruise ship by today’s standards, is 47,800 GT. ![]() Today, we measure ships in gross tonnage (GT) and Titanic would weigh in at 39,640 GT. When she first sailed, Olympic was the largest ship in the world, only to be replaced by the Titanic with 46,328 GRT, the result of adding a steel enclosure to her A deck promenade. Library of CongressĮight hundred and eight-two feet long, Olympic had a beam of 92 feet and gross registered tonnage (GRT) of 45,324. The Titanic and the Olympic under construction at Harland & Wolff in Belfast, 1910. Her trip to Liverpool was timed to coincide with the launching of her younger sister, Titanic, back in Belfast. White Star paid £3 million for the two ships plus a 5% fee and "extras to contract." Olympic was launched in October 1910, spent the next eight months being fitted out and first sailed from Belfast to Liverpool in May 1911. Give the scale of the Olympic and Titanic, Harland & Wolff had to combine three existing slipways into two larger ones and employ 3000 men to build the ships. The first ship in this new class would be the Olympic, followed by Titanic (1912) and Britannic (1915).Īll three ships were constructed in Belfast by Harland & Wolff who had been building ships for White Star since the 1860s. Consequently, White Star commissioned a new class of liners which would be bigger than anything that had gone before and would be the last word in comfort and opulence. Bruce Ismay, decided his company would concentrate on economies of scale and luxury. In 1906, White Star’s rival, Cunard, launched the two fastest passenger ships in the world, the Lusitania and Mauretania. Library of Congressīoth Titanic and Olympic were part of the White Star fleet and built to compete for the lucrative transatlantic passenger business in the early 20 th century. Postcard of the Olympic, circa 1913-1920.
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