Titanic-in-color.com © 2010J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of White Star Line, and William Pirrie, the chairman of Harland and Wolff shipyard, intended theOlympic-class ships to surpass rival Cunard's largest ships, Lusitania and Mauretania, in size and luxury. Construction of the Olympic began three months before Titanic to ease pressures on the shipyard. Several years would pass before Gigantic(renamed Britannicafter Titanic's sinking) was constructed with post-Titanic modifications.
In order to accommodate the construction of the class, Harland and Wolff upgraded their facility in Belfast; the most dramatic change was the combining of three slipways into two larger ones. Olympic's keel was laid in December 1908 and she was launched on 20 October 1910. For her launch, the hull was painted in a light grey colour for photographic purposes (a common practice of the day for the first ship in a new class, as it made the lines of the ship clearer in the black and white photographs). Her hull was repainted following the launch.
World War 1
In World War I, Olympic initially remained in commercial service under Captain Herbert Haddock. She sailed from New York on 20 October 1914 for Britain, though carrying very few passengers, as Germany had announced that her U-boats would sink the Olympic on sight and most of the passengers had cancelled.
In the early hours of 12 May 1918, while en route for France with US troops under the command of Captain Bertram Fox Hayes, Olympic sighted a surfaced U-boat 500 m (1,600 ft) ahead. Her gunners opened fire at once, and she turned to ram the submarine, which immediately crash dived to 30 m (98 ft) and turned to a parallel course. Almost immediately afterwards Olympic struck the submarine just aft of her conning tower and her port propeller sliced through U-103's pressure hull. The crew of U-103 blew her ballast tanks and scuttled and abandoned the submarine. This is the only known incident in World War I in which a merchant vessel sank an enemy warship. Olympic returned to Southampton with at least two hull plates dented and her prow twisted to one side, but not breached.
Olympic did not stop, but continued on to Cherbourg. The USS Davis sighted a distress flare and picked up 31 survivors from U-103. It was discovered that U-103 had been preparing to torcreep the Olympic when she was sighted, but the crew could not flood the two stern torcreep tubes.
During the war, Olympic is reported to have carried up to 201,000 troops and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and travelling about 184,000 miles. Her impressive World War I service earned her the nickname Old Reliable.
Other info:
Christian peterman will help with the replica (Famous guy at Netherlands) Also
Harland and Wolff wich are the builders (For info:
http://www.harland-wolff.com/home.asp) (Made by antares)
Harland and Wolff are the same people that built Titanic, Olympic, Titanic, Britannic, Celtic, Adriatic, and many more.
For more info visit the site: http://replicaolympic.us.tt/
