Will the Titanic II ever be built? And if so, when will it sail?

Back in 2012, billionaire Australian businessman Clive Palmer announced the construction of a modern “replica”  of the doomed passenger liner RMS Titanic which sank after striking an iceberg in 1912. Palmer’s Titanic II was to be built in a Chinese shipyard and go into service in 2016. Since then the project has moved in fits and starts. The project finances fell apart for several years. The ship delivery dates moved first to 2018 and now to 2022. There has been an abundance of announcements, CGI drawings, and videos, while apparently no steel has actually been cut.

In October 2018, Palmer announced that the project was back on track. His ship owning company Blue Star Line was said to be establishing a headquarters in Paris sometime in 2019. Since that announcement, there has been silence on the project from Palmer or Blue Star. 

Recently, there has been a series of new articles hyping the project. Buzz.ie leads with A Titanic replica ship is being built for 2022. MSN.com is a bit more careful with its verb tense in its article, Inside the Titanic II, a close replica of the 1912 Titanic cruise liner that could set sail in 2022.

After the various promises and delays, there is considerable skepticism as to whether the project will ever go forward. Chris Lo, writing in Ship-Technology.com sums up the concerns: “Given the sketchy details around the project and Palmer’s history of over-reaching, should Titanic II be taken seriously?”

This is not to say that serious players are not involved with the project. The Finnish naval architecture and marine engineering design firm, Deltamarin, which was involved in the early designs of the ship, was contracted last year to continue with the design.  Likewise, V.Ships Leisure has been hired as ship manager.

Initially, he shipyard designed to build the ship was CSC Jinling in Nanjing, China. Whether the yard was capable or had the facilities to build the Titanic II was open to discussion. In any case, no shipyard has currently been contracted and no fabrication has been started on the ship. Apparently, Blue Star Line has acquired 3,000-odd Titanic-themed sets of cutlery and flatware, however.

The Liverpool Echo had no luck when they attempted to contact Blue Star Line to ask questions about the project.  They started with the Blue Star Line website, which does not appear to have been updated in the last year. They ten attempted to email the firm and received an automated reply saying, “Thank you for your interest in Blue Star Line’s Titanic II. We are overwhelmed with the support and encouragement from fans and supporters around the world.”

The email also promised that media inquiries would be forwarded to their media team. Nevertheless, Liverpool Echo never received a response. 

They also attempted to contact Blue Star through its Facebook page, where they found a phone number in Brisbane, Australia. On dialing the number, however, the line just kept ringing and no one picked up the phone.

Will the Titanic II ever be built? Only time will tell, but I wouldn’t want to bet my seat in the lifeboat on it.