Posted by Mark Darrah on September 29, 2000 at 17:37:38:
In Reply to: Re: Olympics props?"Conspiracy". posted by s gardner on September 29, 2000 at 15:37:39:
I usually ignore this topic, but I would like to point out that all of the conspiracy buffs completely ignore the fact that there were literally HUNDREDS of major and minor differences between Titanic and Olympic. The enclosed promenade was but the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. If that was the the only difference, a case might be made. However...
The single most important difference betwen the two ships was B deck. Olympic had an open promenade running the entire length of the superstructure along both sides of the ship. Titanic was designed from the beginning with an extra set of staterooms that extended right out to the sides of the ship. The Shipbuilder article shows a plan of B deck on Titanic and was published long before the Hawke collision. In order to switch ships, it would have taken an entire army of H & W workers WEEKS to rip out Titanic's B deck interiors and swap them with Olympic's.
Not to mention the myriad other differences in porthole arrangements, fittings, etc that were unique to Titanic and are on shown pre-Hawke plans.
The authors of these books never even mention these additional differences at all or try to expain how this could be accomplished. Either they are purposely misleading the public, or didn't do even the most basic research on the ships.
It doesn't matter what propeller blades are on what ship. When you look at the bigger picture, you HAVE to conclude that a switch is nothing but mediocre fiction.