Australian multi-billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer is at it again. After 10 years of planning, launches, 3D presentations, promises and just as many stops, this time it seems (a journalist asked if it was a hoax and he said he had money to build ten ships like this) he announced to the world that his challenge of building a scale replica of the ocean liner that tragically sank in 1912 would now be a reality. This time he too spared no expense: for this new announcement, he rented a room at the Sydney Opera House.
However, after distributing a press release to reporters promising his company Blue Star Line would build “the ship of love and the ultimate in style and luxury,” Palmer admitted he was missing one small detail: a shipyard .
Ten years of “nuanced” projects
Almost 10 years have passed since Palmer held a very similar press conference at the Ritz Hotel in London to “launch” his dream, or rather his challenge, the Titanic II.
Since then, Palmer has served as a federal MP, canceled and then relaunched a political party and spent millions of dollars on various legal challenges, tourism ventures and expensive election campaigns. After this first launch, work on Titanic II was suspended in 2015 after a payment dispute between one of Palmer’s companies and the Chinese company Citic deprived it of funding. Palmer re-announced the project in 2018 with a proposed departure date of 2022, with a possible launch in Dubai in 2022. In 2019, in fact, a Blue Star Line representative announced that no shipyard had actually been commissioned of the realization of the project.
Palmer then blamed the delays on the Covid pandemic and turning to the funds, he said: “I have more money now.”
Palmer, who will turn 70 at the end of this month, has no doubts this time: «I will do it – he said -. It’s a lot more fun to do Titanic than sit at home and count my money. Palmer said he was confident he could secure a shipyard in time for the ship’s construction to begin early next year, with the ship’s maiden voyage from Southampton to New York – replicating the route of the ill-fated 1912 voyage – scheduled for June 2027. Mindful of the delays and aware of the hesitations about the project, Palmer gave even more precise data: «He said that the tenders for the construction will be published in June, with the contracts signed by December. He estimated that the 56,000-ton vessel would cost between $500 million and $1 billion.
Features
Most of the necessary changes compared to the original ship already from the first projects include an obviously welded and not riveted hull, stabilizers, the reduction of the space once used for the 29 coal boilers and the three steam engines (two alternative engines and one turbine) to create a diesel-electric propulsion system. The space gained will be used for waste treatment, air conditioning and water purification plants.
Chinese competition
There is also the plan for a Chinese replica of the Titanic, which designed and laid the keel in November 2016. Commissioned by Seven Star Energy Investment, the function of this replica is to be used as a theme park attraction and as a stationary floating hotel on the Qi River in Sichuan Province. Unlike Palmer’s Titanic II, the Chinese replica is not intended to sail the sea: it was intended to be a stationary floating hotel on the Qi River in Sichuan province, in a theme park setting. However, only a quarter of the hull was built, which would be abandoned and largely rusty.
Criticisms of the project
The idea of creating an identical copy of the Titanic divided public opinion from the start. Between superstition and bad memories, there are those who have defined the plan as madness and even in bad taste. At the time of the first project, the last Titanic survivor still alive at the time, Millvina Dean, said she was absolutely against it.