An Australian billionaire, Clive Palmer recently unveiled blueprints for a successor ship to the doomed British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15th April 1912. The blueprints in which he revealed showed an ocean liner which looks like the Titanic.
Jovial and brash mining tycoon, who likes to style himself “Professor”, said that his ambitious plans to launch a copy of the Titanic and sail her across the Atlantic would be a tribute to those who built and backed the original. At a press conference in New York, he announced, “We will complete the journey. We will sail into New York on the ship they designed”.
The outline of Titanic II is an almost exact match to the original ship, which struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912. That means its silhouette as it travels across the waves will be virtually indistinguishable from the first ship, complete with four rear-slanted funnels.
But he has cautiously avoided dodged some serious questions about icebergs and whether or not this new ship would be “unsinkable” by responding, “Anything will sink if you put a hole in it. Also, due to global warming, the risk of traveling through the water near the Arctic Circle has lessened considerably. There are not so many icebergs in the North Atlantic these days”.
Right.
It prompted the main designer of the ship Markku Kanerva, to respond, “I can assure you, from the safety point of view, it will be absolutely the most safe cruise ship in the world when it is launched”.
Perhaps nervous about the idea of reminding people of the suffering and agony of the world’s most famous maritime disaster, Chris was careful to bring out a descendant of a Titanic survivor to endorse the project. Helen Benziger, granddaughter of Molly Brown (a socialite) who became famous for persuading a lifeboat to turn around and search for survivors. She heartily backed the new venture, saying, “Bringing this ship back? I don’t know the words. It is a chance to go back in time”.
Titanic II (what it has been called) is set for a 2016 launch and will mostly mimic the same route from Europe to America. As we speak, applications are already pouring in to be part of the maiden voyage. As of time of writing, there have been about 40,000 applications.
Oh so eerie.
(Source)