The ship carried 48 lifeboats, capable of carrying at least 75 people each. However, several of these davits were placed abreast of funnels, defeating that purpose. The aim of this design was to enable all the lifeboats to be launched, even if the ship developed a list that would normally prevent lifeboats being launched on the side opposite to the list. Īdditional lifeboats could be stored within reach of the davits on the deck house roof, and in an emergency the gantry davits could reach lifeboats on the other side of the ship, providing that none of the funnels was obstructing the way. ( Olympic was refitted on her return to Harland and Wolff.) The main changes included the increase of the ship's beam by 2 feet (0.61 m) to 94 feet (29 m) to allow for a double hull along the engine and boiler rooms and raising six out of the 15 watertight bulkheads up to B Deck additionally, a higher rated 18,000 horsepower (13,000 kW) turbine was added over the previous two vessels 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW) ones to make up for the increase in hull width.Ī more obvious external change was the fitting of large crane-like gantry davits, each powered by an electric motor and capable of holding six lifeboats the ship was originally designed to have eight sets of gantry davits but only five were actually installed before she entered war service, with the difference being made up with manually-operated Welin-type davits as on Titanic and Olympic. With Britannic, these changes were made before launching. The vessel is also currently the largest passenger ship on the sea floor.įollowing the loss of Titanic and the subsequent inquiries, several design changes were made to the remaining Olympic-class liners. Britannic was the largest ship lost in the First World War. There were 1,065 people on board the 1,035 survivors were rescued from the water and lifeboats which was soon picked up by the British Destroyer HMS Scourge. She was shaken by an explosion, caused by an underwater mine, in the Kea Channel off the Greek island of Kea on the morning of 21 November 1916, and sank 55 minutes later, killing 30 people. The White Star Line used Britannic as the name of two other ships: SS Britannic (1874), holder of the Blue Riband, and MV Britannic (1929), a motor liner, owned by White Star and then Cunard, scrapped in 1960.īritannic was launched just before the start of the First World War and was laid up at her builders, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. She was the sister ship of RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic, and was intended to enter service as the transatlantic passenger liner, RMS Britannic. 3309 wounded HMHS Britannic (/brɪˈtænɪk/) was the third and last of the White Star Line's Olympic class of vessels.
0 kommentar(er)
