By Adam Cree

Reporter

Time to man the lifeboats and panic. An Australian coal billionare, Clive Palmer, has announced that he is going to build a replica of the orginal Titanic.
The new Titanic will be named Titanic 2 and will be an almost duplicate of its namesake, except for a few minor features such as, more lifeboats and easier access to them, a diesel generator and more efficient prow design.

Access to the lifeboats is made possible by adding doors to the second class deck and fire stairs to third class. There will also, reportedly be double the lifeboats for the same amount of passangers.

The ship’s propellers will be built much smaller, but will be more efficient in the water. And because the ship’s rudder will be much smaller and underwater, the one you see on the rear of the ship is only for looks.
Finally, the ship’s boilers will be replaced by a massive diesel generator, which means the smoke stacks planned for the Titanic 2 will be purely cosmetic as well.
The Titanic 2 is expected to launch in 2016 and its maiden voyage will be from Southampton to New York later that year. Hopefully, William Murdoch isn’t the First Officer because that was the orginal route of the Titanic’s maiden trip to the ocean floor.
But surely, the billionare who is funding the boat has thought of ways to improve safety over the last Titanic. Unfortunately, that billionare might be a few flood compartments short of unsinkable himself.
He once attempted to turn his personal golf course into “Jurassic Park.” In 2010 he started the company Zepplin International, with the desire to make a commercial Zepplin. That went nowhere. With saftey in mind, Palmer has contracted a Chinese shipyard to actually construct the boat. This shipyard only has experience making cargo vessles. Nothing can go wrong there. They might even take the time to weld the hull instead of bolting it in place.

“Nothing has been done about the icebergs in the Atlantic. But that’s okay,” said Palmer at the press conference announcing the ship. Icebergs will be a thing of the past by 2016.

Palmer has said that he’s received offers of $1 million for a ticket. With an interior that is (mostly) a replica of the orginal, the rich will sail in style. The interior wood paneling will be Veneer, so that the ship meets modern fire standards. Sadly, the new titanic will probably be less fire resistant than the orginal. It is not lined with asbestos, one of the few truly fire-proof materials man has discovered.
I refuse to ride in a boat where they take the hazards of fire more seriously than their tempting fate in the worst way possible.  Everything, from the name of the ship, to the route it will embark on, to the billionare who’s funding the construction seems destined to fail.

Hopefully, the new ship is a titanic success instead of a titanic disaster.