Realizing the Dream

    The decision to build Olympic and Titanic materialized in March of 1908.  At the Harland and Wolff Shipyards, three existing slipways at the Queen's Shipyard were demolished to make way for slips 2 and 3.  Not only would these be the largest slipways until then, but they would also be the most technologically advanced, with the gantries festooned with large cranes.

    Lord Pirrie had persuaded the Belfast Harbour Commissioners to build a graving dock for Harland and Wolff that could accomodate these two, and any future giants that were to be built.  He threatened that if he were refused, he would close down the shipyard and move his business to the mainland.  The Harbour Commissioners fearfully obliged.  The Thompson Graving Dock would be completed in 1911.

    In New York, the man who had bankrolled the project, Junius Pierpont Morgan who was the monetary force behind the International Mercantile Marine, lobbied at the New York Harbor Commissioners' office to extend theWhite Star Piers.  He loved all things big and the Olympic Class was no exception.  He was refused, being told that to do so would be a hazard to navigation.  Another option as to where these new behemoths would dock in the New World was at Montauk Point, the easternmost point of Long Island.  The Long Island Railroad warmed to this idea.  However, Ismay would still have these ships docked in New York's White Star Pier 59, lengthened or not.

    Managing Director, the Rt. Honourable Alexander Carlisle, appointed Thomas Andrews, Jr. as Managing Director of the Design Department.  Andrews would be in full resposiblity of the design of Olympic and Titanic.  Carlisle and Andrews wanted room 64 boats for each ship, which with the new Welin-type davits, would be far more ecomonical than installing that number with the block and tackle system which was prevailent on liners like Lusitania and Mauretania should the Board of Trade decide to increase the number of boats required on a ship.  They got the room, but the notion of 64 boats on all the ships was overuled by Bruce Ismay and Harold Sanderson.  Andrews and Carlisle never seemed to have pressed the point again.

    In July of 1908, Harland and Wolff drew up a formal proposal to Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, who were White Star's nominal owners, and they liked what they saw.  The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company ran with Harland and Wolff a "cost-plus" basis, in which OSNC would pay whatever the ship would cost at the end of a project, instead of a fixed price from the start.  (When Harland and Wolff built the Canberra for the P&O Lines on a fixed price in the middle of this century, the shipyard nearly went bankrupt)

    Yard no. 400, as Olympic was called, was laid down on 16 December 1908.  Her sister Titanic would have her keel laid down on 31 March 1909, fourteen weeks later.  Being the first of her class, Olympic attracted a great deal of attention from the press and rival shipyards.  Cunard's next transatlantic liner, Aquitania, would be affected by Olympic's design.

    On Olympic, there was to be a the first pool capable for one to swim in.  Surely enough the earlier Adriatic of 1907 also had a pool, but it was no where large enough for a person to swim in.  Also on this ship were to be an extravagant Turkish bath, decorated in so that one couldn't tell if if he or she were at sea or in the Middle East.  On the Boat Deck, there was to be a gymnasium, which in modern times, would be more accurately described as an excerise/weight lifting room.  Eleven styles of decor, from Jacobean to Empire, would adorn the first class suites on decks Bridge "B" and Shelter "C," an extra tariff a la carte restaurant like those of the Hamburg American Line of Germany would be at the end of first class territory on Bridge Deck "B."

    Although the Olympic was an extremely dense ship, designed for 1,054 passengers in first class, 510 in second, and 1,020 for third, she promised to be as spacious as a palace.  Especially with a projected gross tonnage of 45,000 tons.  (Note, 1 gross ton is equal to 100 cubic feet.  It is a measure of volume, not of weight)

    Being the largest hulls ever constructed up to that time, every consideration was taken into making sure that these ships would be as strong as possible, in order to face up to high seas.  Another feature that made these ships safe were the design of 16 watertight compartments, which could contain flooding in any two compartments, any three of the first five, or all of the first four, with watertight doors that could be closed by the flick of a switch from the bridge to the tank top.  The rest of the doors had to be closed manually.  In any case, Olympic and Titanic were heralded as "practically unsinkable" by the world's foremost shipping experts.

    The machinery that drove these massive leviathans came from 24 double ended boilers, 5 single ended, each with 3 furnaces, totalling to 29 boilers and 159 furnaces.  The steam made by these boilers powered the twin triple expansion reciprocation engines which then had steam recycled by piping it into a non-reversible low pressure Parsons' Turbine.

    By 20 October 1910, the Olympic was ready for launch.  Bruce Ismay had it arranged that Olympic would be painted white to get the photographers to snap the best pictures possible, and invited J. P. Morgan to the launch as well as the Lieutenant of Ireland.  As a deviation from other shipping lines, White Star never christened its ships, not even those of the Olympic Class.  As one Harland and Wolff worker put it, "we just build them and shove 'em out."

    After that, the Olympic would be headed for the Thompson Graving Dock for outfitting, and she would be handed over to White Star on 31 May 1911, the same day as the launch of Titanic.  These ships were of such fantastic magnitude that they were soon talked about by all levels of society.  It seemed that White Star was going to win the transatlantic competition after all.