Displacement Discrepancies (Olympic Edition)

[A. Gabriel]

Why are there three values known for Olympic's displacement? And which of the three is the authoritative value?

From lightest to heaviest we have:

• 52,067 long tons, source unknown (seriously, I can find no online citation for this value)
  
• 52,160 long tons, sourced from this image of a page from a Harland & Wolff dimensions book
• 52,310 long tons, the commonly accepted value for Titanic's displacement (see above image for conflicting value) here applied to the older sister

 

[Mark Chirnside]

A. Gabriel,

Olympic's displacement scale gives 52,310 tons at a load draft of 34 feet 7 inches. Edward Wilding gave the same data to the British investigation.

We have further details from an order book maintained by Harland & Wolff, giving the same figure for the same load draft and specifying 143.8 tons per inch and a block co-efficient of 0.684.

(In 1911, Thomas Andrews noted that when the Olympic was loaded to 33 feet 6 inches her displacement was approximately 50,500 tons, and she displaced about 51,340 tons when loaded to 34 feet.)

It is possible to get slightly different figures depending on the calculation.

Kind regards


Mark.

 

[A. Gabriel]

Many thanks, honorable Mr. Chirnside. I had found somewhere that the Olympic’s displacement scale was actually put up on auction during the year of her scrapping — and I should very much like to track it down so I may copy the information off of it. Are its whereabouts known?