Raising Belfast with the Titanic

By P=l O Conghaile

Could a boat put Belfast back on the map? Mark Blackburne thinks so. Not just any old boat, mind you, but a 1,200ft leviathan combining “the ambience and atmosphere of an Edwardian ocean liner with all the facilities and amenities you would expect of a very modern cruise vessel”.

He’s been dreaming this since he was a child and, you might say, so what? So check the name on his vessel’s stern: Titanic 2.

Blackburne, Northern Ireland Director of Operations with RMS Titanic Shipping Holding Ltd., has been working on the idea since 1997. Decorated after the original and kitted out with artifacts and archive material, a replica Titanic, full-scale and designed to function as a themed cruise liner, he and company Chief Executive, Sarel Gous, reckon, will function as something akin to “a flagship for Northern Ireland in Belfast”.

Nor is this pie in the sky. Titanic 2 has already been designed, and if all goes as planned, in 2004 she will glide down Belfast’s slips for what many consider a second time.

That Blackburne and Gous, a South African entrepreneur, met for the first time at Harland & Wolff is, of course, no coincidence. The Belfast shipyard has, throughout its history, built over 1,700 ships and offshore structures, but Titanic remains its flagship.

At 882 feet and 66,000 tons displacement when she was launched, White Star’s pride was the largest moving object ever crafted by the hands of man.

Those hands are long since idle. Last March, Harland & Wolff served almost its entire 1,745-strong workforce with 90-day protective redundancy notices.

It’s not just Harland & Wolff that has been suffering. Over the years the importance and value of the Lagan to Belfast has waned – so much so that the Laganside constituency web site, as recently as 1987, saw fit to dub the river “an industrial and environmental wasteland”. No wonder that Dr. Ian Adamson, UUP member and Northern Ireland Assembly representative for East Belfast, is enthusiastic about Titanic 2’s prospects for rejuvenating the area.

“The shipyard itself will never achieve the heights it has in the past, but from a local perspective, I hope it survives,” Adamson said. “Titanic 2 would mean jobs. Not only in the building of the ship, but through interest engendered in that building process.”

To a casual observer then, East Belfast seems plum. One has to realize however, as Peter Harbison is keen to illustrate, that Harland & Wolff has had “numerous approaches from people with proposals to build replicas of Titanic, and to various degrees of authenticity”. None have come to fruition. Enter the bottom line – US$575m long. Harland & Wolff “want to see the money”, as Blackburne puts it, and to this end, his company hopes to float on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market this summer, raising an initial Stg_10m of “badly needed capital.”

The success or otherwise of that flotation will serve as a barometer of interest in the project and, if all goes well, half of the vessel’s total costs will be matched by a number of international merchant banks. The green light is tantalizingly close.

And all the while, peering regally down from her plans, Titanic 2 awaits the addition of her “intricate nuts and bolts”. Almost finished but not quite – an eerie simulacrum.

Based on her predecessor’s blueprint and a host of photographs from the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, she will seem from the exterior “the same, only larger”. Ringing in at 1,200 feet, the overhanging stern and four raked funnels will map a similar profile.

Inside, the state and smoking rooms, public areas and CafT Parisian check out, as do the grand staircases, fore and aft. Below deck, replacing coalbunkers and the original engine room, will be cinemas and health suites. “Basically, you can go from the 1912 Edwardian era to the 21st Century,” Blackburne says, “at the drop of a lift.”

That elevator ride won’t be cheap. Unashamedly prioritizing “rich Americans”, Blackburne and Gous hope to charge a full complement of 1,500 passengers “between $1,500 and $15,000” for a week’s sailing on World, Mediterranean and Scandinavian routes.

“We realize that Titanic 2 is going to be above the range of most people’s pockets,” the Belfast man confirms, “but we still don’t think that should exclude people from seeing it.” While the ship is in port he hopes, she will double as a floating museum. Joe Soap, in other words, can pop on board and have a gander.

This is where things get controversial. Because in order to attract Joe Soap, Titanic 2 is going to need artifacts. Genuine artifacts. Fortunately, thanks to oceanographer Robert Ballard who found the original Titanic’s wreck, everyone now knows where those artifacts are. Or at least, were – 170 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, 13,000 feet down. Since 1985, expeditions by salvor-in-possession of the wreck, RMS Titanic Inc., have yielded over 6,000 objects, ranging from delicate porcelain dishes to a 20-ton section of her outer hull.

Meticulously conserved and regularly exhibited, the recovery of such artifacts, salvagers argue, helps “preserve the physical memory of the ship and the people who perished in the disaster”.

Millvina Dean, youngest of five remaining Titanic survivors, disagrees. Out of respect for 1,502 souls lost, she argues, artifacts should categorically “be left where they are.” Her argument seems a dwindling one, however.

“This great ship has a short time to live,” Dennis Cochrane, historical adviser to RMS Titanic Inc., says. Bacteria, sediments and acids have combined to render the ocean floor a deeply hostile environment, he says; Titanic is “shattering and dissolving into a mound of rust”. Blackburne concurs.

“Some may say it’s tacky and morbid, but whether you believe those artifacts should or should not have been brought up, the fact is that they have been brought up, and therefore they need to be looked after.” Having the ship double up as a floating museum, he reckons, would make financial sense for both companies.

Still the doubts remain, largely due to Titanic’s status as a symbol of hubris. “When Mrs. Albert Caldwell was watching the deck hands carry up luggage at Southampton,’ Walter Lord wrote in his book, A Night to Remember (1956), “she asked one of them, ‘Is this ship really unsinkable?’ ‘Yes lady,’ he answered. ‘God Himself could not sink this ship.'” Ominous words, but since technology had been delivering a steady stream of miracles for the better part of two decades, few disagreed.

Not for long. “Four and a half days later,” as James Cameron recalled prior to the release of his 1998 film, “the world had changed.”

And how – carrying only enough lifeboats for 30 percent of her capacity, taking with her more 3rd class children than 1st class men, when Titanic sank, the curtains closed on a certain way of living. A cautionary tale of nihilism and nobility, an horrific parable of man’s arrogance in the face of God – however you look at it, never again would a liner carry too few lifeboats. 89 years on, “cashing in” on such a tragedy could be read as a gross disrespect.

“I would never set foot on this new ship,” Millvina Dean recently told The Observer. “It would be too painful. I don’t mind if these people want to build a new luxury cruise liner, but they should not use the Titanic name.”

Dr. Ian Adamson is sympathetic. “I’ve met Millvina and she’s a gorgeous lady. I do take her point, you know, but it’s the ship we’re building really. We’ve had QE2’s and so forth, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t have a second Titanic.”

Blackburne agrees. “We are not recreating the tragedy. We are recreating nostalgia, the ambience of a bygone age and a class of ocean liners of which Titanic was the pinnacle. Anything we do will be tasteful and we hope will not offend. That’s very important to me, because I realize you can’t forget how many people died on that ship.”

Whatever your thoughts here, the debate certainly highlights the position Titanic currently occupies in the public imagination. Simply put, courtesy of a certain $600m box-office smash, Titanic has never been so cool.

Proof, Blackburne says, lies in the “countless” phone calls and emails the Ulster Titanic Society, of which he is chairman, has received, registering interest in fares and availability.

Furthermore, a survey recently conducted on the society’s web site found 84% of respondents willing to sail on Titanic 2. The notion of disrespect barely figured.

“The cold reality of the thing,” Dr. Ian Adamson concludes, “lies in the success of the flotation. But hopefully people in the commercial world will be inspired by the theme and see the benefits of it from their own point of view.”

If they do, Blackburne hopes to issue Harland & Wolff with a letter of intent this year, followed closely by a formal contractual agreement. All going well, the boat will be ready to sail in 2004 and he, for one, will not shirk the maiden voyage. “I’ll be on board. Absolutely.”

So there you have it. Titanic 2 – dream, economic magic bean for Belfast, testament to the immortal spirit of Thomas Andrews. Or tacky in the extreme, quite possibly the ultimate postmodern faux pas? The choice – the $15,000 question – is yours.