titanic advert

[tinkie]

I have just seen the funniest advert for a TV show, boasting that the Titanic was built in Britain, not something to be proud of, surely, even my Son picked up on it!!

[Ankou]

why? it weren't dodgy boatbuilding that caused it to sink were it?

[tinkie]

It was claimed by the ship builders, that is was unsinkable!! and sinking on it's maiden voyage wasn't good

[Ankou]

"The shipbuilders Harland and Wolff insist that the Titanic was never advertised as an unsinkable ship. They claim that the 'unsinkable' myth was the result of people's interpretations of articles in the Irish News and the Shipbuilder magazine. They also claim that the myth grew after the disaster."

[boxtops]

It was - sorry, but I thought that was well known, it was the pride of the White Funnel line. It was styled as unsinkable because of all the internal watertight compartments - they didn't anticipate that more than one would be punctured in a collision. The building of the thing was a fantastic feat for Britain, but the shipbuilders didn't anticipate an iceberg.

[sddsddean]

Apparently, one of the guys in the design office was asked for a quote for advertising by the ad company and he said 'Well, in our opinion it is virtually unsinkable'. The advertising company decided to drop the 'virtually'.
As an aside, I was on a cruise on the Celebrity Eclipse (new cruise ship that you may remember went to 'rescue' some holidaymakers stranded by the ash cloud in April). Anyway, during one of the trivia quizzes the question was (and I may get my numbers a bit wrong) "the Titanic had 12 watertight compartments and would sink if 4 were flooded. The Eclipse has 14 compartments. How many need to be flooded for it to sink?". Well, of course everyone thought what with advances in technology etc that answer must be at least half...say 7 or 8. Answer was 5, so hardly better than the Titanic!

[askyourgran]

White Star Line boxy.

[jno]

apparently it sank because the helmsman momentarily forgot he was on a steamship instead of a sailing ship and turned the wheel the wrong way - steamships and sailing ships worked in opposite directions

http://www.guardian.c...anic-tragedy-evidence

[chrissa1]

That was a very interesting article jno.

[dartagnon]

Sorry to be pedantic here, but am I right in saying that the Titanic wasn't built in Britain, but in Northern Ireland - Belfast to be exact.
My reasoning is that when a team represent these sceptered isles they always say "Great Britain and Northern Ireland" because GB is only England;Scotland and Wales.

[dotty.]

err when did they make Northern Ireland Northern Ireland?

[dartagnon]

Sorry Dotty, you're living up to your name. Please explain

[dartagnon]

I've now seen the advert which does say it was built in the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland is a part of the UK (But not GB).