On October 20th, the first of the three giant sister ships built for the Southampton-New York Service was launched in Belfast.

She was named Olympic, and was followed into service by the Titanic and Britannic.

Of 45,324grt, the Olympic was 830ft. (269.13m.) long, overall, with a beam of 92.5ft. (28.19m.) and she had accommodation for 735 First Class, 674 Second class and 1,026 Third class passengers.

On June 14, 1911, the Olympic sailed from Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York via Queenstown.

There is often confusion between pictures claiming to be the Titanic when in actual fact they are the Olympic.

As there were not many pictures of Titanic available for promotional purposes, pictures of Olympic were used as this picture shows. It was found hanging on the office wall of White Star in Liverpool. The caption on the picture reads Titanic but in fact it was the Olympic.

They would have been visually identical but for the fact of complaints from 1st class passengers aboard the Olympic that wind and sea spray was affecting their walks on the promenade decks so for the Titanic they were enclosed to accommodate White Star Line’s 1st class passengers.

1910

Laurentic ~ A Trans-Atlantic Chase

In 1910, one of the most hated criminals in Britain - the wife killer Dr. Crippen and his lover Ethel le Néve - fled to Canada on Canadian Pacific’s Montrose. Since Crippen was an American citizen, he would be outside of British jurisdiction if he stepped ashore in North America.

However, the crew on board the became suspicious and sent a wireless message to Scotland Yard about Crippen’s presence, the first time a wireless message had been used in this way.

Inspector Dew booked a ticket on the Laurentic - which was the fastest ship on the Canadian run along with the Megantic - and managed to catch up with the Montrose off Father Point, St. Lawrence.

The Montrose let the inspector on board and Dr. Crippen was arrested.

He was taken care of by the police, and later returned to Britain to stand trial on no other ship than the Megantic.

For his criminal deeds, Dr. Crippen paid the ultimate price and was hanged.

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