Welcome back to a new two-part post. After finishing my first two posts on Titanic, I thought it only right to go over the histories and some of the greatest stories of her sisters RMS Olympic and HMS Brittanic. This first post will cover Olympics development and early career while the next post will follow her war service and final years. Enjoy!

Everyone knows the tale of the Titanic and the public fascination and mythos that followed. However, many people forget that Titanic was only the 2^nd of three massive sister ships. RMS Olympic, RMS Titanic, and HMS Brittanic. Built in that order each ship boasted the title of the largest ship in the world until her younger sister was finished despite being nearly identical. All starting of course with RMS Olympic; which we will henceforth call Olympic. The eldest sister of the Olympic class of ships built for the White Star Line, and the only sister who would serve a long and fruitful career.

Olympic sailed her maiden Voyage on June 14, 1911, from Southhampton, England to New York City Captianed by Edward J. Smith. The exact route and Captain that less than a year later her ill-fated sister Titanic would sail. However, unlike her sister she successfully arrived in New York harbor on June 21, 1911, to much fanfare. She was indeed the most elegant and massive ship on the seas, but her good fortune would be short-lived.

Three months into her career and on only her fifth voyage Olympic would meet with a horrible accident. On September 20, 1911, Olympic was sailing near the Isle of Wight near Sothern England when she passed too close to the Navy Ship HMS Hawke. Now normally as long as there was no collision course this wouldn’t be a problem, but for Olympic it was. Why? Because she was so massive the suction from her triple screw propellers drew the much smaller Hawke directly toward Olympics Starboard side. Thus Hawke was now being pulled bow first into Olympics stern starboard side, but that wasn’t the worst part. See HMS Hawke as a warship with a specially designed bow that was meant to take the force of a direct frontal ram. Thus, with all of these factors combined a collision was all but certain.

*CRASH* The HMS Hawke slices through the stern of Olympic opening and flooding two of her watertight compartments. Amazingly no one on board either ship was killed in the collision, but both vessels were heavily damaged. Olympic was forced to cancel her New York crossing and return to port in Southampton disembarking all of her passengers and being pulled from service for six weeks to make repairs ultimately delaying her sister Titanic’s Maiden Voyage. Finally, in a somewhat controversial decision, the Navy found the Olympic to be fully liable for the incident and responsible for paying all damages and repairs. Luckily the cost of the repairs was not as high as expected for both ships and Olympic was soon back in service, but disaster loomed once again on the horizon.

On April 15, 1912, Olympics was sailing to Southhampton from New York when she got terrible news. Her brand new sister Titanic was sinking. Olympic made full steam towards Titanic’s last known position, but as the sun rose she got the news that her sister was gone and RMS Carpathia had picked up her survivors. Olympic then offered to take on the survivors but was quickly denied as fears that seeing a nearly identical ship to Titanic may cause panic for some survivors. Thus she continued to Southhampton to finish her voyage. She would then become the subject of much scrutiny as she was reviewed stem to stern in the official Titanic Investigation. She would again be pulled from service barring safety improvements and the addition of more lifeboats. So, without her younger sister to be her running mate, Olympic began service again while she waited for her youngest sister Britannic to finish her construction. She would continue in this capacity for two more years before the onset of WW1 would see her pulled from commercial service yet again to assist in the war effort. However, that’s a story for next time.

Thank you so much for reading. If you liked that post please feel free to leave a comment or question below. A big thanks to The Great Big Move and Historic Travels for the inspiration to write this post. Please check out their Youtube channels if you like this type of content and I’ll see you soon for part 2!