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Cunard’s two 31,500-ton liners
Lusitania and Mauretania
began a new era in shipbuilding. In
response to these ships, the White Star
Line’s managing director Bruce
Ismay and Lord Pirrie of the shipbuilders
Harland & Wolff, designed an even
larger class of liner. The first two of
these ships, Olympic and
Titanic, were built side by side
with the third Britannic following
three years later. Olympic was the
largest ship in the world at that time,
designed for comfort and luxury. Her slow
service speed of 21 knots meant she would
take a full day longer to cross the
Atlantic than the Cunard liners that had
a service speed of 25 knots.
Olympic’s maiden voyage
from Southampton - New York began June
14th 1911. She had to be returned to
Harland & Wolff for repairs after
colliding with the British cruiser
Hawke on her fifth departure from
Southampton. That collision damaged
Olympic to an extent two of her
watertight compartments were flooded. The
loss of her sister ship Titanic in
1912 led to Olympic being returned
to Harland &Wolff for a second time
so her safety features could be modified.
The most extensive part of that refit was
having her double skinned bottom and
bulkheads extended to above the
waterline. These modifications also saw
Olympic equipped with enough
lifeboats to accommodate all the
passengers and crew. With the work
complete, her volume increased to 46,359
tons.
The British Admiralty requisitioned
Olympic to serve as a troopship in
1915. During her 22nd troop-carrying
voyage in May 1918, she was attacked by
the German submarine U-103.
Olympic’s captain made a
sharp turn to avoid the torpedo and set a
course to ram the submarine. The
following collision gave U-103 no
chance of survival. As these large
troopships had to keep moving to evade
submarine attacks, the American
escorting destroyer Davis was
given the task of picking up the
submarines survivors.
Olympic’s return to Harland
& Wolff after the war saw her
interiors restored and boilers converted
to oil burning. The completion of that
work allowed her to be returned to the
Southampton - New York run June 25th
1920.
Olympic became part of the
newly formed Cunard - White Star Line May
10th 1934. On her first voyage for the
new company, she collided with the
Nantucket Lightship while steaming
through heavy fog. That incident caused
the death of seven people. The excess of
ships created by the merger of the two
companies led to their older liners being
sold off. Olympic was laid up at
Southampton next to Mauretania in
April 1935 so her fixtures and fittings
could be sold at auction. Many of those
items were bought for the White Swan
Hotel in the town of Alnwick/England.
Olympic was partially dismantled
at Jarrow/England before her remains were
towed to Inverkeithing/Scotland for the
scrapping to be completed September 19th
1937.
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