RMS Olympic : Your Opinions

[Gabriel Gerard Scotto]

What are your personal opinions of Olympic? Do you like her less than Titanic? Almost as much? The same? More?

Personally, I'd have to go with "more." Olympic was always the "old reliable," "A beautiful Lady," while her sisters met depressing fates. Despite lacking some of her sisters features, she only comes second to Britannic in my book!

 

[Brian R Peterson]

Hi Gabriel,

I'm personally indifferent to Olympic - I think the Titanic had a better looking profile with the enclosed A-Deck and B-Deck suites extending to the sides of the ship, but Olympic was the first of the line, and set the example.

As for interior features, there is a lot we don't know about Britannic's interiors - although IMO Britannic would have outdone Titanic and Olympic by far had she seen passenger service.....

Best Regards,

Brian

 

[Michael H. Standart]

I have no preference to one over the other myself. It's the overall history of the class that interests me.

In technical terms, they may have left a few things to be desired, but they were a well balanced design in overall appearanc and very comfortable ships by the standards of the day. That they avoided some of the topweight problems of some of their contemporaries was helpful in that.

 

[Steven Hall]

On the Olympic class ship.
Every so often something comes along that captures our collective attention.
Olympic / Titanic were beautiful ships. Simple but wonderful. And let no person say they were not good ships.
Other things we remember, the elegance and power of the Concorde. The Titan rocket that took man to the moon. Every so often there's a benchmark in visual and practical engineering.
We look back at England's fighter, the Spitfire. Her brilliant Lancaster bomber or Vulcan fighter bomber.
The german Tiger tank, the USAF B17.
Even today, Start Treks Enterprise (the first) has a shape that tells us what could be possible.
People might laugh at Star Trek - but read this article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6567709.stm
As Cpt. (the Fox) Hayes said about Olympic, 'The finest ship in my estimation that has ever been built or ever will be.'
Whether an object is designed and built for peace, war or exploration - the human eye is the ultimate test.

 

[Samuel Halpern]

Good points Steve. When I look at the Olympic class ships in profile I notice a degree of symmetry fore and aft that is lacking to some extent in other large passenger vessels. It's all in eye of the observer and what makes them respond the way they do to an image, a sound, the way something feels, or just being part of some experience that couples them directly to a ship or automobile or just about anything.

 

[Jason D. Tiller]

I don't have a preference either; it's the history of the Olympic class that I enjoy. All three were very beautiful vessels in their own right.

 

[melissa nicolace]

i love olympic. far more than i love titanic. to me olympic was the most beautiful, majestic ship to have ever set sail in the universe. to me she was perfect. i even did my big western civ project on her.

 

[Gabriel Gerard Scotto]

I know, she did what she was supposed to, she sunk a U-Boat, served her country valiantly in times of crisis, sailed for 24 years, while Titanic...

...she sank!

 

[David G. Brown]

'way back on April 19th, Sam talked about the symmetry of the Olympic class. I've been thinking about that and looking at a profile drawing. One thing I note is the careful use of "disappearing points," or the points out in space ahead of, and behind the ship where the lines of the decks and the sheer would meet if they were continued to infinity.

While you can't see disappearing points, the existence of them makes the design seem more "finished" to the viewer. It's that quality I've referred to previously as "eye sweet." The forward disappearing point seems to be about 300 to 350 feet forward of the stem, using the horizontal of the boat deck. The stern point closes considerably farther aft, using B deck.

Hulls in 1912 were painted black in large part to hide the coal stains from loading coal, ejecting ash, etc. There was another reason. The black of the hull and the white of the superstructure tend to emphasize the sweet lines of the ship.

Use of disappearing points has dropped from modern naval architecture because this technique artificially constrains the size to which the superstructure can grow. That means less interior space, which places a limit on the revenue the ship can generate. Follow the money trail to today's "sagging wedding cake" architecture.

-- David G. Brown

 

[Chloe Olive]

Olympic was my favourite. It served more than 20 years so it must have had an interesting career

 

[Brent Holt]

It was the Saturn V rocket that carried people to the Moon, not the Titan.
Olympic is my favorite ocean liner-period. She had an exterior appearance that was hard to beat and served successfully for 2 and a half decades. She did what she was built to do.
Read Mark Chirnside's book on her and you will understand.
Although I am obviously interested in Titanic, I prefer to study ships that had longer lives and did not end up on the bottom of the ocean.

Brent

 

[Aly Jones]

Titanic did look more significant cause of the A-Deck being exclosed. Olympic was special, not only cause she was built first but she was the only one that survive out of the three sisters.
The other two ships wern't really needed at all,Olympic did everything on her own!
Olympic and Titanic are my fav, but for some reason,Britannic does not appeal to me. Sometimes i feel like the Britannic gets left out more.

 

[Nigel Bryant]

Nice discussion. Olympic and Titanic are both my favorites. Both ships were beautiful and their different histories are so compelling.

Nigel

 

[PRR5406]

Olympic is the disregarded sister, in my mind. She met no over-whelming calamity and did what she was expected to accomplish. What IS remarkable regarding Olympic, is the manner in which her career dissolved and ended in being broken up, like any used piece of machinery. Had Titanic and Britannic survived their fates, they would likely have gone unnoticed into history, gutted for their fixtures, and reduced to scrap metal. It's only because of the latter two, we remember their older sister in any significant manner.
What I do find interesting, is how a huge creation of human beings can interact with time and humanity, to become a significant historical icon,; something by which we measure time and destiny.