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Australian Billionaire Plans To Build Titanic II
SchrodingerZ writes "Just in time to miss the 100-year anniversary of the fatal voyage of the Titanic, Australian mining billionaire Clive Palmer announced he has plans to recreate the Titanic, calling it Titanic II. 'It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems,' says Palmer. He stated it was to be as close to the original as possible, with some modern adjustments. Its maiden voyage is set for 2016."
It would be nice to take a sail on such stylish, vintage ship. I hope they also have dress codes for women so they will wear vintage dresses. After having a nice dinner I will take some nice lady to her room and draw her naked. Then have sex with her in a vintage car. And die after we crash into New Zealand.
I'M KING OF THE WORLD!?!
but of course it will have state-of-the-art 21st Century technology and the latest navigation and safety systems
No way to sink that, then.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Yeah, that would be hilarious. Oh, wait, the Italians beat him to it.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There is already a movie (using the term loosely) about the Titanic II from 2010. Spoiler Alert: Both the ship and the movie sank.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1640571/
Will it provide the full Titanic experience?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_II
"As close to the original as possible" with "state of the art 21st Century technology..." hmm.
In April 2012 Palmer announced he had commissioned a Chinese state-owned company to build a 21st Century version of the Titanic.
So it is going to sink.
I smell a James Cameron sequel!
It'll be pretty much like the original, but with state-of-the-art 21st Century technology like pykrete to survive in more temperate waters, and the latest targeting and weapons systems.
AC for obvious reasons, MUAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!
Way to keep it classy, guy.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Just a suggestion, but this time try having lifeboat space for every passenger, not every other passenger?
As history teaches us, the reason the Titanic sinking was a disaster, and not just a misfortune was that it had enough lifeboats for the government regulations of the day, which is to say, one person-space in a lifeboat for every two passengers.
Futurist Traditionalism
Like more lifeboats?
Every bit as luxurious as the original is not very good by today's cruise ship standards. The first class cabins on the Titanic were about 1/2 the size of typical cabins on modern cruise ships. They did not have balconies or in room bathrooms and the windows were tiny.
I would never, in my wildest dreams, get on that boat.
I hear an excellent captain has just become available.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
You know what would be funny...?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
"Instant karma's gonna get you! Gonna knock you right in the head!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq-N3_plNq8 pretty much sums it up
The fastest, the furthest. The best. And I should know, because... My name is Max!
Please understand that this guy has been attempting to manipulate Australian media coverage by trying to make crazy sounding headlines to distract from negative reports about his political allies.
I heard he's consulting with Abercrombie & Fitch on aesthetics and design. As I understand it, the hull will be pre-distressed and cost twice what a typical cruise ship costs.
We`ll see...
He's having it built by a government-owned shipyard in China. One that has never built a passenger ship. Jinling builds large single-engine tankers, container ships, and RORO (roll-on, roll-off) vessels. Five shipyards in Finland, France, Italy, Germany, and South Korea build most of the passenger ships in the world, and Jinling isn't one of them.
I know! We can combine other delusions together! Let's make this ship from asteroid-mined iron!!!
each woman will be given a chunk of blue glass to throw off the back when at sea.
There are some things so engrained in the human consciousness as bad or cursed and should not be brought up again, aside from reverence.
Making a Liner called the Titanic 2 or Dirigible called the Hindenburg Zwei only stand to bring forth such horrific notions and blatantly invite self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sure, feel free to spit and damn "superstition" all you want, there is something to be said about the imaginings of a mass consciousness that can actually have an effect, if only on a purely psychosomatic level -- but that's all it takes to sink a ship all over again.
It's the Titanicker!
The enemies of Democracy are
A lot of people know of the Grand Staircase in the first-class salon, but if you have ever attended a Titanic exhibit you know that even the first-class accommodations were actively shabby with modern standards. Roomy, yes, but shabby. Second class and below are beyond belief.
Seriously isn't there better things to throw your money into?
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Hopefully it'll take off better than the gigantic Freedom ship (check out the pictures). The Freedom Ship seems like a giant scam to me.
I find it ironic that Palmer, a mining billionaire, is trying to recreate the Titanic, while the entertainment billionaire James Cameron, who has done the most in the public eye with the Titanic in the past decade or so, is using his billions to mine asteroids (and arguably is doing more to potentially advance mankind in the process).
It's Called Fox News only its drowning all of us this time instead of just the people on the boat....
Call me when it's a catastrophe.
That is this silliness is real, the thing fails horribly and sinks on it's maiden voyage...
Handy map
(Perhaps "close to the original" was a poor choice of words.)
It'll be the "Land Titanic" this time!
...to use the lifeboats?
Given the classism of the era, you almost expect them to have enough spots for the passengers above a certain level but basically exclude the steerage and other lower classes from rescue.
Why not invest the money in Tesla, bullet trains, solar/wind generated electricity, vaccines for 3rd world children, developing a compressed air battery car further, etc?
The world doesn't need a working replica of an obsolete ship.
"The starship titanic, the ship that cannot possibly go wrong."
He is saying "It will be every bit as luxurious as the original Titanic" and also "as similar as possible to the original Titanic in design and specifications".
But the Titanic design wouldn't be anything near luxurious in 2012. For starts not cabins except for the best first class cabins had bathrooms. Adding them to cabins would require a major redesign of the layout.
In 2012 no one would travel in the cabins from 2nd and 3rd classes.
The ship also won't have anything near the facilitates that's expected these days. The Titanic may have been a very large ship in 1912 , but in 2012 it would considered very small.
Cruise TT
Why this obsession, bordering on reverence, for a boat that sank and killed 1500 people?
You have the Chinese making a ship that sank. What are the odds they just copy the design without bringing it up to current standards. Though it might surpass current Chinese standards. For example:
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2010/02/05/shanghai-wonderbridge-trash-collapses/
The only thing is that there were plenty of first class men who gave up their spot. Yes, losses were heavier in the steerage class.
For all of the classism of the era, there was also a "women and children first" ethic.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
To properly prove this design to be unsinkable, they should hire Francesco Schettino to captain it.
Not much detail in the article about how similar it would be to the original. I would hope that it would be "every bit as luxurious" as modern uniclass cruise ships which are more comfortable than first class was in the old Olympic class liners and Cunard queens. Today's passengers would probably prefer to have a bathroom in their own cabin rather than having to go down the hall.
I wonder what they're going to do below decks. Steerage accommodation probably wouldn't be much of a tourist attraction, unless there's going to be a handful of steerage rooms in the old style just for people to look at and "get a feel" for it without having to actually stay in it, like the cell block at Alcatraz.
Then there's the matter of propulsion. Obviously it'd have to be a diesel engine. I'd be interested in seeing a replica of the old boiler-turbine setup though. James Cameron's film showed the ship as having piston engines, but I suspect that was more for dramatic effect. That baby had a steam turbine.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
James Cameron can't wait to start production on the sequel.
Much like the Canadian Loonie ($1 coin) and Toonie ($2 coin), they should call this the Tootanic.
They were, but lifeboats were seen as ferries from on ship to another. The atlantic shipping lanes were busy enough that it seemed very unlikely that a sinking ship would be too far from other ships for this to be an option.
The Titanic may have been a very large ship in 1912 , but in 2012 it would considered very small.
Would it? Modern car ferries plying the Irish Sea are smaller. Some cruise ships are smaller. Until the Carnival Destiny was built, no purpose-built cruise ship was bigger than the old ocean liners.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Will Iceberg II be ready for the maiden voyage?
... infer that a Titanic II replica will be close to unsinkable. Unfortunately, laws of behavior of the masses infer that people that decide to board this ship on its maiden voyage will probably poop themselves once or twice onboard.
Titanic
Tonnage: 46,328 GRT
MS Ulysses (Irish Ferries)
Tonnage: 50,938 GT
List of cruise ships over 100k GRT (eg. over two titanics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_world's_largest_cruise_ships
Cruise TT
after calling it "unsinkable!"
I'll wait for the second voyage I think.
What was the question? Oh, the real reason they remade the movie in 3D? Yes, that is indeed the answer.
While a Concordia is not much bigger, if you going to book some time on fancy floating palace don't you want to be on the very biggest?
Not necessarily. Some of the fancier cruises (read - no water slides) are on smaller ships. And this should make it even simpler to reconstruct a Titanis-ish looking ship:
What could possibly go wrong?
actually falling around the time of the Renaissance....
Late 30's is not a problem
I'm a straight guy and even I recognize this stuff about beauty standards is ridiculous.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
I know some people I'd like to buy tickets for.
The new design and safety technology notwithstanding, knowing how superstitious people are, who would be brave enough to take a chance on a ship named Titanic II? They'd think it was jinxed before they got out of the port.
Instead of building yet another cruise ship, let's build the Starship Enterprise and go into deep space! C'mon! (About 300 years too soon, but who cares?) :)
I wish you good luck and godpseed.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Now I'm waiting for Billionaire, which will finance the reconstruction and launch of the iceberg.
Last week, I had this same thought occur to myself. I hadn't been exposed to any publicly broadcasted except Titanic 3D.
I got to thinking if we could recreate the experience of Titanic. What would you change to make it modern? Would you run it off of steam as was the means of its predecessor: RMS Titanic? Or would you use diesel which is common in current cruise liners?
Then I wondered if anyone would ride it. It's kind of a floating historical icon. And would people feel that the same fate looms over the new Titanic?
Oh, well. I wouldn't have any means to capitalize on the idea but hey, such is life.
The original Titanic ran on coal, something like 800 tons a day. Natural gas has about twice the BTUs per weight.
It's being built in China. The boat will either explode and then sink, or sink and then explode.
I'm glad someone else knows about it. Did you ever hear the story about Mountbatten (who was always keen on new naval technology) firing a revolver at a lump of it and nearly killing a few people? A pity they never got the chance to try it- just imagine the reaction of a U-Boot captain trying to torpedo an iceberg - which then fired right back.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Have gnu, will travel.
Will radio operators wear the Marconi uniform? Will this ship have passenger access to bow? (to do, "I'm King of the World!"). Will there be a Molly Brown to organize some fun parties for the snobbish people? Will the place to really have fun is down in steerage where after dinner everyone gets drunk and dance their ass off?
Be sure those idiots on the Californian maintain radio watch at all times. If you gotta hit an iceberg, hit it straight on.
mfwright@batnet.com
Come back when its a catastrophe!
The wider you make it for a given length, the more power it'll take to hit to top speed, increasing exponentially IIRC.
OTOH, that massive reciprocating engine, the turbine, the coal bunkers, and the couple dozen boilers filled most of the ship below the water line. Removing those leaves plenty of room for a handful of very powerful turbines and their fuel.
Do you suppose the steerage class wasn't meant to use the lifeboats?
Given the classism of the era, you almost expect them to have enough spots for the passengers above a certain level but basically exclude the steerage and other lower classes from rescue.
The only thing is that there were plenty of first class men who gave up their spot. Yes, losses were heavier in the steerage class.
For all of the classism of the era, there was also a "women and children first" ethic.
As opposed to our era with its "I fell off the ship" ethic.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If it were me, I'd build the world's first airborne cruise ship. Yes, there were zeppelins, but they were point-to-point precursors to 747s. But a zeppelin that was outfitted like a cruise ship and didn't need to compete with 747s on speed would be excellent, because it would fly slower and lower and give the passengers far more to look at than your average waterborne cruise, staring out at the featureless sea for day after day. Imagine a sky yacht cruise taking you at low elevation over the Grand Canyon or Arches and you get the idea. How awesome would that be?
If not us, who? If not now, when?
I was actually on the Titanic II..it was a crappy old canoe with a hole in the bottom of it. For every stroke of the paddles there needed to be a filling of the bailing bucket to keep her afloat.
For the sake of everyone who has ever renamed their ship/boat Titanic II over the last century they should name her Titanic III.
It is not unprecidented to reuse the same name as a sunk ship even for cruise lines. The Holland America Prinsendam ship was lost to fire in 1980 yet cruises can still be booked on her replacement to this day.
"Titanic" is a bit different but my guess at least in the short term media attention is apt to make up for any loss in sales to the superstitious cowards. I'd go as long as they didn't stock any bannanas.
They were, but lifeboats were seen as ferries from on ship to another. The atlantic shipping lanes were busy enough that it seemed very unlikely that a sinking ship would be too far from other ships for this to be an option.
And in fact there were ships within only a few hours sailing from the Titanic. Had they been alerted immediately after striking, or even as soon as they knew the ship was sinking, they would probably have arrived in time to save everyone. Granted, it was but one in a long line of serious blunders, but this failure certainly contributed to the deaths of a lot of people.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
No danger for iceberg collision anymore , this will be a flop . ..
Sir, this is the Titanic, you can do both. Indeed, it's mandatory.
I think he should name it the Valdez too.
... bring back the Hindenberg!
At least it is jobs for the little guy.
Just like in the movies ............. the Titanic will always sink ................. because there's a limit to how big things can be.
Probably a diesel engine like most ships.
Then again, Clive Palmer DOES own a few coal mines so he could probably use coal to run the thing like they did back then...
I hope it will have enough life boats.
The ship will be used to haul his ego around the world.
With the global warming going on, we're in more in need of rich people spending their fortune on new icebergs in stead of old ships.
Who ever heard of second time lucky?
In 2097 is James Cameron's head in a liquid-filled jar going to release a movie about the Titanic II sinking?
My kingdom for a donkey!
This will not end well...
The only real difference should be to avoid the same tragedy should it happen again, is place a float-able dingy in each room, so that if the main deploy-able boats are full, no one would be left stranded, they just would have to figure some way of staying attached to the main boats, through rope?