FAMOUS LINER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22117, 24 May 1935, Page 18

FAMOUS LINER

FUTURE OF OLYMPIC «j> The Cunard-Whito Star, Limited, recently declined to deny or confirm a report that the Olympic, the famous Atlantic liner, had made her last voyage and was shortly to be broken up. It was understood that tho Olympic was to lie up in dry dock at Southampton "for three months, and plans for a trip to New York on June 29 preparatory to a. series of cruises were cancelled. If tho ship drops out of tho North Atlantic service it will mean the passing of one of tho most famous liners afloat. She is among the fastest merchant vessels in tho world, with a speed ot 12-23 knots, and the largest British-built ship in service. When she was launched in 1911 the Olympic was tho largest ship afloat, her tonnago being 46,439. She was a sister-ship of tho ill-fated Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage to New York on April 1,4, 1912, with a loss of 1500 lives, after striking an iceberg. The graceful lines of tho fourfunnelled Olympic are well known to ocean travellers, with whom she has always been popular. During the Great War the Olympic escaped unscathed, in spite of tho dangers of the work sho performed. Jn 1915 she carried troops through the danger zone of the Meditteranean to the Dardanelles. It was during this period that a new commander, later to be famous as Sir Bertram Hayes, was appointed'. Subsequently the Olympic was taken over by tho Admiralty And conveyed Canadian and American troops across £he Atlantic. In 1918 she rammed and sank the German submarine U-103 in the Atlantic. The Olympic met with her most serious mishap last May, fthon she rammed the Nantucket lightship in a fog outside New York Harbour. The lightship sank with a loss of seven lives. The United States Government filed a claim against the company, and litigation is pending.