Titanic and Her Sisters Olympic and Britannic
()
About this ebook
In the first of the ShipCraft series to cover non-naval vessels, this meticulously researched and illustrated volume looks at the legendary cruise ship RMS Titanic and her sisters, Olympic and Britannic. Written for the serious model ship builder, this book not only covers the many model kits available, but a concise history of the ship’s class, including every detail that contributed to the ship’s creation.
Accompanied by hundreds of photographs of models in various scales, the text covers paint colors, line drawings, and scale plans, as well as the differences in the ships’ appearance over time. An invaluable resource on available models, their pros and cons, and ways to modify and customize each one, this ShipCraft title concludes with a reference section essential to any modeler.
Read more from Peter Davies Garner
RMS Titanic: A Modelmaker's Manual Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Titanic and Her Sisters Olympic and Britannic
Titles in the series (21)
Victory: 100-gun First Rate 1765 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiverine Craft of the Vietnam Wars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scharnhorst and Gneisenau Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rodney and Nelson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritish Escort Destroyers of the Second World War Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5British Sloops and Frigates of the Second World War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiverine Craft of the Vietnam Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYamato Class Battleships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKing George V Class Battleships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNew Orleans Class Cruisers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yorktown Class Aircraft Carriers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTitanic and Her Sisters Olympic and Britannic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGerman Pocket Battleships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Allied Torpedo Boats Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Japanese Heavy Cruisers: Myoko and Takao Classes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGerman Battlecruisers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Kongo Class Battlecruisers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrand Fleet Battlecruisers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Essex Class Aircraft Carriers of the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5German S-Boats Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Japanese Battleships: Fuso & Ise Classes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related ebooks
Exploring the Britannic: The life, last voyage and wreck of Titanic's tragic twin Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTitanic: The Myths and Legacy of a Disaster Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTitanic, A Search For Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe RMS Titanic: Conception, Catastrophe, and Legacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAllied Torpedo Boats Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5British Battleships 1919-1945 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titanic: A Passenger's Guide Pocket Book Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Battleships: The War at Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAssault Landing Craft: Design, Construction & Operators Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5HMS Belfast Pocket Manual Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShip Spotter’s Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHMS Royal Sovereign and Her Sister Ships Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Titanic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBismarck and Tirpitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Essex Class Aircraft Carriers of the Second World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unsinkable Titanic: The Triumph Behind a Disaster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5RMS Olympic: Titanic's Sister Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Really Sank the Titanic:: New Forensic Discoveries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iowa Class Battleships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last Log of the Titanic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yamato Class Battleships Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRMS Titanic Made in the Midlands: Made in the Midlands Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ismay Line: The Titanic, the White Star Line and the Ismay family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKongo Class Battlecruisers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTitanic: A Captivating Guide to the History of the Unsinkable Ship RMS Titanic, Including Survivor Stories and a Real Romance Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReport into the Loss of the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrand Fleet Battlecruisers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5German Pocket Battleships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World War 2 In Review No. 40: American Fighting Vehicles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDown Amongst the Black Gang: The World and Workplace of RMS Titanic's Stokers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Modern History For You
Voices from Chernobyl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/518 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Night to Remember: The Sinking of the Titanic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Notebook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5About Face: The Odyssey of an American Warrior Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/577 Days of February: Living and Dying in Ukraine, Told by the Nation’s Own Journalists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Every Person Should Know About War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All But My Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Titanic and Her Sisters Olympic and Britannic
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Titanic and Her Sisters Olympic and Britannic - Peter Davies-Garner
Design and History
In 1897, the Norddeutscher Lloyd liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse entered service on the North Atlantic run. Compared with other German liners of the era, this ship was different. In fact, compared with all liners crossing the Atlantic on regular passages, this ship was different. She was built by a German yard, she was the largest ship in the world, and she soon proved herself to be the fastest, and she was the first four-funnelled liner.
The North Atlantic trade had been dominated by Britain. Cunard had two record breakers, Lucania and Campania, in service, so the new German-built wonder-liner came as a shock to the British and, for the fastest transatlantic passenger ship voyage, she won the prestigious Blue Riband on her fourth trip. This was the first time that the distinction went to a German ship.
In the ten years starting in 1897, Norddeutscher Lloyd built four four-funnelled liners and Hamburg Amerika Linie built one – Deutschland, which in 1900 took the Blue Riband from Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse.
However, these high-speed liners all had two fundamental flaws: they were expensive to run and they vibrated badly, particularly towards the stern, where it was most uncomfortable for passengers. Nevertheless, these German successes were a blow to the British.
The second blow to British shipping came when the prestigious Oceanic Steam Navigation Co Ltd, better known as White Star Line, was sold to the International Mercantile Marine Company (IMMC), or in other words John Pierpont Morgan, the American financier and banker. Even though White Star Line ships continued to sail under the British flag, were manned by British crews and the headquarters remained in England, the White Star Line was owned in the United States.
The British needed to respond. In 1907, Cunard commissioned Lusitania and Mauretania. These too would both win the Blue Riband, and Mauretania would remain the fastest ship on the North Atlantic until 1929, when the Blue Riband was recaptured, again, by Germany.
DESIGN BACKGROUND
On a summer evening in 1907, J Bruce Ismay, chairman of White Star Line, and Lord Pirrie, chairman of Harland & Wolff, the Belfast shipbuilders, met at Pirrie’s home at Belgrave Square in London. The topic of the conversation was no doubt the developments in the transatlantic business. The idea of two giant liners, with possibly a third to follow and destined to win back passenger trade for White Star, was born over after-dinner drinks and cigars. These two giant liners would be named Olympic and Titanic. No attempt would be made to surpass the new Cunarders and the German record breakers in speed. Speed was not of the essence. These two new ships would be outstanding in size, luxury, comfort and safety with features such as electric lifts, an indoor swimming pool and a gymnasium. The lesser speed would lead to less vibration and so, in turn, improve passenger comfort. The gross tonnage of each liner was to be 45,000, which was considerably larger than the new Cunarders. A third ship, Gigantic, would follow.
Taken on 31 May 1911, this photo depicts a gala day for Harland & Wolff as in addition to the successful launch of the Titanic, her sister Olympic was handed over to her owners. On board the little Nomadic in the foreground is Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, and Lord Pirrie, chairman of Harland & Wolff and other distinguished guests being ferried out to the Olympic, which was waiting in the River Lagan to begin her first crossing to Liverpool. Nomadic was built as one of two tenders (the second was the Traffic) to ferry passengers from Cherbourg harbour to the Olympic class liners berthed outside as they were too large for docking inside the harbour.
Olympic being launched on 10 October 1910 at Harland & Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast. For reasons unknown the hull of the Olympic was painted white for the launch; Titanic’s hull was painted dark grey and Britannic’s medium grey. Some historians suggest this was to make the ships distinguishable in black-and-white photographs.
They were to be powered by a combination of two four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engines for the wing propellers and a Parsons low-pressure turbine for the centre propeller. This combination had been tried and tested on White Star’s Laurentic and it proved to be very economical. The machinery was to be fired by twenty-four double-ended boilers with six furnaces each and five single-ended boilers with three furnaces each. Titanic’s reciprocating engines, the largest ever built, extended over four decks and two watertight compartments.
Despite the disaster on 14 April 1912, Titanic was possibly the safest ship of her time. Her hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments and had a double bottom. By the ‘flick of a switch’ the captain could close the watertight doors and make the vessel ‘practically unsinkable’. She could stay afloat with her first three watertight compartments opened to the sea. Indeed, Titanic would have remained afloat if she had hit the iceberg head on, but nobody foresaw a glancing blow that would open six watertight compartments to fatally wound the ship and cause her to founder.
Nor was it ever intended to leave the third class passengers to their fate. The idea behind so few lifeboats was that there would always be a ship nearby to assist should something happen. The idea was to row out the first class passengers first, row back to collect the second class and then the third. This philosophy was supported by the experience gained during the loss of the White Star’s Republic, which sank in 1909 after a collision in heavy fog. Republic’s wireless operator sent out the first CQD in history and several ships came to Republic’s assistance. The few casualties were a direct result of the collision. Nearly everyone on board was saved.
On 28 July 1908, a delegation of the most important people in British shipping arrived at Harland & Wolff’s shipyard at Queen’s Island, Belfast. Harland & Wolff had prepared concept plans and a small half-model of