Titanic, Olympic and Britannic

Titanic & Olympic, Belfast, 6 March 1912.

At her launch in 1912, Titanic was the world’s largest ship. She was the second of three magnificent liners, Olympic (1911), Titanic (1912) and Britannic (1914).  All three were built by the White Star Line to carry passengers across the Atlantic Ocean to America.

These sister ships were designed to be the largest and most luxurious liners in the world.  However, they had to compete with the Mauretania and Lusitania, smaller and faster express turbine liners belonging to the Cunard Line.

As the first of the White Star trio, Olympic received a great deal of publicity at the time of her launch.  There was rather less interest in Titanic, even though at 46, 328 tons she was bigger than Olympic.  The last of the three ships, Britannic, was being fitting-out in Belfast when the First World War broke out in August 1914.  She was completed as a hospital ship, but was sunk by a mine in 1916 and never entered commercial service.

Of these three great Belfast-built ships, only Olympic operated as a successful White Star liner, continuing in service until 1935. 

Amazingly, one person endured near disastrous encounters with all three ships.  Violet Jessop was an ocean liner stewardess and nurse who survived the sinkings of both Titanic and Britannic. She was also on board Olympic when it collided with HMS Hawke in 1911.