The Olympic was a smashing success from the outset.  Her maiden voyage started on 14 June 1911 from the city of Southampton instead of Liverpool and headed for New York.  Bruce Ismay was onboard her maiden voyage, and radioed to Lord Pirrie in Britain at the conclusion of the crossing, "The Olympic is a marvel and has given unbounded satisfaction."

    Even such, her early years were plagued with misfortune.  She almost sank the tugboat O. L. Hallenbeck on the first crossing, but the lawsuit wasn't filed until after the Titanic disaster.  On 20 September of that year, Captain Smith was in charge of Olympic while a pilot was at the helm.  As the massive ship rounded Bramble Bank at the head of the Solent, the rather ancient cruiser H.M.S. Hawke, which was running a parallel course to Olympic, all of the sudden rammed into the larger ship.

    At this the White Star Line was dragged to court, where the British Admiralty "proved" the Olympic was responsible for the damage to the Hawke with toys in a tank, saying that the Olympic's displacement drew Hawke into the leviathan's side.  Not surprisingly, th court ruled in favor of the Admiralty, although the Admiralty's "proof" was wide scoffed by maritime scholars the world over.

    Being held responsible, White Star sent sent Olympic back to Harland and Wolff for repairs, and thus delaying work on Titanic.  Soon after she also dropped a propeller, sending her back to the shipyard once again, further delaying work on Titanic and pushing the younger sister's maiden voyage back from 20 March 1912, to 10 April of that year.

    On 10 April 1912, Olympic's sister Titanic sailed from the same home port of Southampton, but never reached New York.  She had hit an iceberg and foundered on her maiden voyage.  Captain Haddock had Olympic, 500 miles away at the time, rush to Titanic's rescue, but she arrived too late.  A large loss of life had resulted, and was largely blamed on the inadequate number of lifeboats.  Not long afterwards, there was a strike by crewmen that they would not travel on a ship without an adequate number of lifeboats for all.

    In the winter of 1913, Olympic was recalled for a refit to fix one of Titanic's flaws that led to the sinking, to add a double hull, make her watertight bulkheads extend higher, and to reduce capacity, although she was spacious to begin with.  Just as well.  Larger ships, once thought of as being safer, were now avoided at all costs, so when the Olympic came back to service, she was heralded as literally, "two ships in one" and that the new bulkheads provided "the utmost safety of the ship."

    New features included a Café Parisien, expanded A la Carte Restaurant, extra cabins on the Promenade Deck, a double skin, and perhaps most importantly, watertight bulkheads that were retro-fitted up to Bridge Deck.  Afterwards, and thoughout the rest of her career, passengers would travel on her, going "on the Titanic, so-and-so refused a seat in a lifeboat here . . . this is where someone else snuck into a boat," etc.  She was popular because she was Titanic's sister.

    When Olympic returned to the seas, the title of "world's largest ship" had been garnered by Imperator.  Still many felt that Olympic was more comfortable, and definitely more stable, as Imperator was notoriously tender and aquired the nickname of "Limperator."  But that wasn't he only rivalry between Germany and Britain, as history would prove . . .