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China News

A Chinese-Built Replica of the Titanic Will Set Sail From Dubai in 2022 (fastcompany.com) 143

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Great news for Celine Dion fans and James Cameron enthusiasts: The Titanic is set to sail again. From a report: Titanic II, a replica of the original Titanic, will make its first voyage in 2022. It will have room for 2,400 passengers and 900 crew members and have the same cabin layout and decor as the original legendary ocean liner. The $500 million ship, which will be built in China, is set to make its maiden voyage from Dubai to Southhampton, U.K in 2022.

The Titanic II will then embark on global routes, starting with the exact path of the original ship, traveling from Southampton to New York, minus the small detour to the ocean bottom, presumably. Making things safer for this journey at least: enough lifeboats, a hull that's welded rather than riveted, and a period of global warming that is melting all the icebergs. (Some scientists argue however that melting ice has led to more dangerous icebergs, not fewer.) Tickets aren't on sale yet, so there's no word as to whether they are selling round trip tickets or learning from experience and starting with one-way fares.


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A Chinese-Built Replica of the Titanic Will Set Sail From Dubai in 2022 More

A Chinese-Built Replica of the Titanic Will Set Sail From Dubai in 2022

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  • how does it's maiden voyage start in Dubai?

  • In the new version (Score:5, Funny)

    by rossdee ( 243626 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @01:09PM (#57549735)

    The iceberg fires first

    • Just wondering - is that original iceberg still there at its location, or has it melted due to global warming?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        Melted, Most north pole sea ice now melts and refreezes every year, the average length of time any ice lasts before melting again has diminished drastically over the last few decades.

  • Life imitates "art" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bradmont ( 513167 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @01:10PM (#57549739) Homepage
    I think they already made a film [wikipedia.org] about this.

  • A+ Summary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @01:16PM (#57549777)

    The summary hit all the classic jokes, A+ for once:

    The Titanic II will then embark on global routes, starting with the exact path of the original ship, traveling from Southampton to New York, **minus the small detour to the ocean bottom, presumably.**

    Making things safer for this journey at least: **enough lifeboats**, a hull that's welded rather than riveted, and **a period of global warming that is melting all the icebergs**.

    • riveting of hull wasn't an issue, not the cause of disaster. Even the steel composition really wasn't an issue, it was standard for the time even if too brittle with high sulfur and low nitrogen by today's standards. Even with modern steel if everything else was the same the thing probably would have sank anyway. The sister ship of the Titanic had a long and safe career for 20 years after the sinking.

      • The sister ship of the Titanic had a long and safe career for 20 years after the sinking.

        That's one hell of a ship that it stays in operation for up to 20 years after sinking. Are you sure it wasn't a sister submarine?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        There are suggestions that the rivets were not properly heat treated and so were brittle, meaning that panels popped apart easily, leading to multiple compartments being flooded. AFAIK this is based on some evidence from the wreck and the Britannic too, but somewhat speculative. Not that it was the only issue as there were plenty of others. But some have argued if it had it the iceberg head on it might have survived, but if the rivets were too brittle, probably not.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        Actually it might have been. One of the trail of issues that lead to the sinking was the switch from "best best" rivets to "best" rivets as a cost saving measure. Perhaps with stronger rivets less panels on the ship might have failed and if only two water tight compartments had been damaged instead of three it would have been able to sail on to New York.

        Other issues where the lowering of the waterproof bulkheads for a sweeping staircase, in which case it would have been able to survive three compartments be

        • Being fair to EJ Smith, it was his first round with this vehicle, he wasn't used to the controls and the handling yet. Conventionally designed ships probably fared better on a glancing blow.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hoofie ( 201045 )

          There were a number of instance where ships rammed icebergs bow-on and survived. If Titanic had hit square-on the bow the outcome may have been different. However there is also wreck evidence and survivor records indicating that the double-bottom was ripped open by an underwater shelf on the iceberg which would have been fatal damage on it's own.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        My understanding of the failure (going on a 30 year old memory here) is that it was linked to the inability to prevent a hull breach from flooding the entire vessel.

        Hopefully they've updated the design to better isolate the impact of any damage.

        • That was my understanding, as well: inadequate bulkheads that didn't extend all the way upwards allowed a domino-effect of compartment flooding...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wwphx ( 225607 )
      Unlikely to happen. The guy in Australia who is doing all this is apparently a rather infamous blowhard. From what I read, he was elected to parliament but didn't participate much. Lots of business failures, the funding for Titanic 2 is predicated on winning and settling several lawsuits against Chinese companies. Ain't gonna happen. Unfortunately I can't find the source of what I read.

    • **minus the small detour to the ocean bottom, presumably.**

      If they built it to be submersible that would be pretty cool.

      Imagine the advertising:

      "View the original wreck on your voyage across the Atlantic"

      Does climate change increase or decrease the number of icebergs? I was thinking it might be fewer, but maybe more are breaking off the ice sheets and drifting into shipping lanes..

    • Re:A+ Summary (Score:4, Funny)

      by twdorris ( 29395 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @05:24PM (#57551095)

      The summary hit all the classic jokes, A+ for once:

      Agreed. And I'll add my personal favorite from the article to the list.

      Tickets aren’t on sale yet, so there’s no word as to whether they are selling round trip tickets or learning from experience and starting with one-way fares.

    • Agreed, the summary was absolutely riveting.

  • I don't know..... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Who would want to sail on a cheap Chinese knock-off of the Titanic?

  • https://youtu.be/DtEiPIPC6LQ?t... [youtu.be]

    "Uh, sir...there's *not* a problem"

  • Well... If it isn't riveted it's just a fake boat. It should be re-name Boaty McBoatface.

  • Oh, right. They already thought of that. [nypost.com]

  • ...Clive Palmer's glorious career before getting very excited by this. He's the 'brains' behind this piece of publicity.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • He's mention in TFA as the originating planner. Thanks for the link, now I have to read up on Palmersaurus, his animatronic dinosaur park...

  • so there’s no word as to whether they are selling round trip tickets or learning from experience and starting with one-way fares."

    actually, that works the other way round - if they "learned from experience", they should push for round trip tickets, because otherwise they may have a little problem selling return fares a little later :p

  • Surely they will make a replica of that as well, to copy the entire experience of titanic!
  • With modern radar and other guidance tech very few ships hit icebergs. On rare occasions they hit other ships, but that is about it. So, how likely would it be for the original Titanic design to sink in a normal lifespan if only the control room was modernized?
  • All I can think of is the irony if the Titanic II gets hit by an iceberg and comes to rest at the bottom of the sea right next to the original Titanic.
  • Really, half a billion sounds a lot until you realise it's only around the budget of two DC films... and at least this ship is unlikely to sink without trace!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by plopez ( 54068 )

      or about a squadron of f35's

      • You won't get a squadron of F-35s as a squadron is usually 12 or 24 planes and the F-35 costs around $135M. You might get a flight of F-35s which is 3 or 4 planes.

    • That's more than the original though. According to wikipedia, adjusted for inflation and the exchange rate, the original would cost $144.5 million in 2018.

      Note that the budget, not including marketing, for James Cameron's Titanic was $200 million in 1997. It would actually have cost less for him to build a have full-up duplicate of the actual ship built and sunk so he could film it actually happening, then it did for him to make the movie.

  • I fail to see the point... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bkmoore ( 1910118 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @05:36PM (#57551155)
    I get it that the Titanic has become iconic for an era in ocean travel, but I don't see the point in recreating Titanic as a modern business venture. She'll probably do well initially until all the hardcore Titanic fans have had their obligatory voyage. But what then? It's almost as if someone decided to revive a DC-7 or Super Constellation and offered a "Pan Am" like service from Idlewild to Charles De Gaule at 200 mph and 20,000 feet. Cool yes, but I highly doubt a solid business plan.

    • But what then?

      Well, first off they can milk it a bit by offering tickets to a couple named "Jack" and "Rose" if they want to get married on board, using the PR to help keep the ship in the news. Depending on how many passengers they can take at a clip, it might not take them too long to get close enough to a break-even point that they can sell the ship to Royal Caribbean or Norwegian to add to their fleets at $0.50 on the dollar. They might even pay a premium if they can keep the naming rights. If all else fails, gut it

  • What country is making the replica of the iceberg for it to hit?

  • Summary left out the best improvement: It'll have radar to see icebergs.

  • Clive Palmer our local titanic nutter (Score:3)

    by labnet ( 457441 ) on Sunday October 28, 2018 @06:54PM (#57551559)

    Clive Palmer is a local billionaire mining magnate/nutter has been trying to get this project up since 2012.
    Famous for starting a political party that went nowhere, buying up a north Queensland nickle refinery that then went broke and buying a nice local resort in coolum that also went broke after he put garish models of dinosaurs in it.
    He also seems to love litigation... so i hope he doesn't read my post!
    I'll believe it when I see it.

  • They will make money using the name of the most famous navy failure. This is literally capitalizing on failure.
  • Dubai... a place with no iceberg...

  • Wait... Is this an Onion article?

    • No far worse. This is real. Even worse than this being real is that the person who came up with the idea: Clive Palmer is real too.

  • This brought to you by the same brain that thought it would be a good idea to build a mechanised Jurassic Park called Palmersaurus. It was a curious oddity, but just so you know the park was so bad even the mechanised dinosaurs committed suicide: https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
    https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]

  • I just know someone will start a bet whether this will hit an iceberg too.

  • But, her icebergs!

    (I guess the above was too short to post...)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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