Multiple projects are underway to recreate a full-scale replica of the doomed R.M.S. Titanic.
The story of the “unsinkable” R.M.S. Titanic received renewed attention after an Irish journalist presented compelling evidence that a fire on board the ship may have weakened the hull just enough for the iceberg to successfully pierce through the ship’s starboard (right) side. (RELATED: Report Floats New Theory On Titanic’s Sinking)
Clive Palmer, an Australian mining tycoon, has been working on a full-scale, nearly exact replica of the ship, which he is calling Titanic II. The Australian billionaire created a company called, the “Blue Star Line,” which plays off the name of the original shipbuilders who constructed the Titanic, the “White Star Line.”
The Titanic II is set to be complete in 2018, and Palmer assured the public jokingly that the ship has more than enough lifeboats in the event of a repeat of 1912. The experience will include Turkish baths, a smoking room, and a gymnasium as it would have appeared in 1912.
The ships maiden voyage was originally scheduled to take place in 2016 from the U.K. to New York (mimicking the original journey). The ship will now launch in 2018, traveling instead from Jiangsu, China to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.
In China, a shipbuilder recently started construction of a Titanic-replica, which will be the centerpiece of a sprawling resort in the country’s Sichuan Province.
The Chinese Titanic project is funded by Sichuan Seven Star Energy Investment Group, which invested $45 million in the project in 2014. Unlike the ship being built by Palmer, the Chinese Titanic will be permanently fixed to a dock, as a tourist attraction.
You can tell your friend obsessed with the #Titanic that a Chinese company is building a full size replica. #ttot https://t.co/3JV6DFIHm7 pic.twitter.com/p6gThSR8or
— KnowRoaming (@KnowRoaming) December 6, 2016
Interestingly enough, both ships are being built in China. Palmer’s Titanic II, was contracted out to a Chinese company in the country’s Jiangsu province. Because of delays and restructuring, the Chinese version is expected to open first.
According to Senan Molony, editor of the Irish Daily Mail and longtime Titanic-expert, multiple photographs taken by the ship’s engineer before its maiden voyage reveal 30-foot black marks across the ships hull, near where the iceberg struck the ocean liner.
Experts have said that the marks were likely caused by a fire in the three-story high fuel store behind one of the ships’s boiler rooms. The fire, which raged for weeks before the ships maiden voyage, may have weakened the steel just enough to allow the iceberg to rip a hole into the side of the ship.
While Molony’s assertion that a “mix of fire, ice and criminal negligence” brought down the Titanic is receiving worldwide attention, an Australian billionaire and a Chinese theme park remain focused on their own Titanic projects.
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