The Olympic Class Ships

Sitting around a dining-room table in 1907, the owners of the White Star Line discussed how they would compete with the newly built Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania. From that smoke-filled room came the first designs of three White Star superliners: Olympic and Titanic were to be built at Harland & Wolff's yard in Belfast, while the third ship, Britannic, was to follow after construction of the first pair of sisters. Each ship was subtly different. Lessons learned from the service of Olympic were put into practice for Titanic. With her loss, on her maiden voyage, the hull design was radially changed for the third sister ship. The new double hull, however, did not prevent Britannic sinking in less than an hour in the Aegean after she hit a German mine in 1916.