The Olympic-Class Ship Olympic, Titanic, Britannic
By Mark Chirnside


For the first time, now in one large book, here is the story of the magnificent trio: Titanic, Olympic and Britannic In the history of the great transatlantic liners, the story of the Olympic-class is surely one of the most extraordinary. When conceived, they were the largest vessels in the world and, in terms of luxury, they were magnificent. But the seemingly assured long and successful careers that were predicted for the trio, would turn out differently. This book traces in detail the turbulent history of these three sister ships whose average lifespan was less than ten years. Each ship was subtly dissimilar. Lessons learned from Olympic’s service were incorporated for Titanic. Despite being extremely popular with the cream of the traveling public, their joint history was punctuated with many mishaps culminating with the loss of Titanic after just four and a half days on her maiden voyage. With her loss the third sister’s hull design was radically changed. A new double hull however did not prevent Britannic from sinking in less than an hour in the Aegean after she hit a German mine in 1916. Only Olympic survived and had a lengthy life. Exhaustively researched, this book is not just a rehash but contains much new and original material and is the definitive history of the most famous sister ships of all time.

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