Australian Billionaire Plans To Build Titanic II 289
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."
More lifeboats. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wsj.com] 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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Built in government-owned shipyard in China (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Anyone notice the irony? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Probably strike a coral reef and sink (Score:3, Interesting)
No, what's hilarious is that a filthy rich guy plans on building a ship that was created during an economic downturn, filling it full of people, and then going on a long trip where... after it hits an iceberg, all the poor people will be locked below and the ship will sink, which is not in any way a parallel to today's economy where we are bailing out billionaires 'too big to fail', and setting people up for a lifetime of loan repayment and wage slavery.
Next to 'Irony' in the dictionary will be a picture of this man standing next to his ship.
Re:More lifeboats. (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, the atlantic shipping lanes were quite busy (even in the 1880s), which may have been part of the problem. They saw lifeboats as ferries from one ship to another, which was expected to arrive in short order.
Re:So, he's building a steampunk ship? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think he means aesthetically...
Give it the same general shape and layout. Keep the iconic grand ballroom. Give it fake smokestacks.
But under water, give it a bulbous hull. Bow thrusters. Weld the thing together. Naturally, give it a proper rudder :)
Inside the ship, use the huge space freed up by the change in propulsion technology and the lack of demand for "steerage" to do more traditional cruise-ship things. Cabins should look old, but be brought up to modern standards... perhaps keep a few historically accurate for people who want such things.
They will probably want to make it a little bigger - the Titanic was big for it's day, but much smaller (about 1/3 the size in tonnage) of the Queen Mary 2. Mainly, it was too narrow - under 100 feet at it's widest. Queen Mary 2 is almost 150 feet wide. I think they could fatten it without giving up too much aesthetically. More room for lifeboats :)
Re:Go Ballmer! (Score:5, Interesting)
Ships in the 50,000 ton class are being retired or sold off at 15 years old because they aren't profitable enough compared to the big things. (Celebrity's "Horizon" and "Zenith", for example.)
(Posting AC since still at work...)
Depends on the market... it would suck trying to run a mid-sized ship in the hot markets (Caribbean/Mexican, Alaskan, Mediterranean, etc). On the other hand, it would hold up pretty good in the lesser-traveled markets, and given the iconic design and historical cache', the North Atlantic and possibly North Sea or North American Seaboard (New England, Canada, etc) runs would serve it pretty well.
Re:Anyone notice the irony? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is also the fourth such stunt he's pulled so far this year (bought himself the title of "national living treasure", announced a huge new Casino in the middle of nowhere which isn't going to happen and accused the local Green party of being run by the CIA). He's a clown that has weaseled his way around the rules and laws that other people have to abide by and really has done little more than make a huge number of lawyers (he sues a lot) and himself rich.
To sum up - Don King on a bad day is far less ridiculous.