Ill-fated Titanic II project abandoned before launch
Chris Hogan, 3rd July 2015, Boat
A few years ago we reported that a replica of the Titanic was to be built for a new cruise company – the Blue Star Line. At the time the project was announced there were mumblings about the project being in bad taste and courting disaster – that's exactly what's happened.
Fortunately this time the disaster hasn't claimed lives – it just looks like the project's been quietly abandoned. The shipyard isn't doing any work, nor is the design company or Lloyd's Register, the BlueStar Line's website has been moribund for over a year and no-one from the company is responding any enquiries.
Ambitious project
The Blue Star Line, the cruise company that would operate Titanic II, was announced by Clive Palmer, an Australian mining magnate. He said when announcing the project that passengers would want to take part in a recreation of a piece of history.
Apart from modifications to suit modern regulations, which would include a a safety deck and more sophisticated and plentiful lifeboats, Titanic II would have been a replica with slavish attention to detail. The interior and fittings would have been identical to the original, the menu would be the same, even period costumes would be supplied to passengers.
But now, although there's been no announcement, all the indicators are that the project is at least indefinitely on hold.
BBC South Today report
The replica was to have sailed on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 2016 but the BBC's South Today programme reported a few weeks ago that work to build the ship hasn't started, despite a shipyard in China agreeing to the job.
The BBC's transport correspondent Paul Clifton said: "It was going to be built at the CSC Jinling shipyard near Shanghai, a yard that has never built a passenger ship, a yard that has no dry dock. So Titanic II would have to be launched sideways into the sea – by a wide margin the largest ship ever to be launched that way."
Nothing happening anywhere
Mr Clifton said that although Lloyd's Register had been signed up to oversee technical standards they had told him "there have been no further developments involving us".
It was a similar story with Finnish design company Deltamarin who told Mr Clifton that their commission has been completed and they have no further work to do for Blue Star Line.
In Australia the contract with the Chinese shipyard had never been signed, workers have been quoted as saying work hasn't begun and the Blue Star Line website hasn't been updated for over a year.
No demand?
Mr Clifton said that it appeared that Clive Palmer has lost interest but also that it wasn't clear that people would actually want to travel on a replica of the Titanic.
Being a faithful recreation, it would have been much smaller than the monster cruise ships that are the trend these days. Neither would it have had the luxuries and facilities that cruise passengers are used to, like theatres, show lounges and bunk beds in the smaller cabins.
False start
This wasn't the first time an attempt had been made to create a Titanic replica; over a dozen projects were floated in the surge of interest created by the blockbuster 1997 film. The project that probably got the furthest was helmed by Sarel Grous, a South African.
It started in 1998 and he later commissioned ship designs, including a feasibility study by Belfast-based Harland and Wolff, and interior design by Callcott Anderson in London. In 2002 capital raising started in earnest but by 2006, after many changes and false starts, it was clear that investment was never going to come in and the project was abandoned.
Who's next?
Given that over a dozen Titanic replica projects of one sort or another have been proposed in the past it does seem likely that one will finally get off the ground, regardless whether it seems like a good idea or not.
But it would appear that Clive Palmer's Titanic II will not be one of them.
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