Our story begins with the Titanic, an ocean liner that was first laid down in 1909, launched in May of 1911, and fitted out in March of 1912.
She was a 45,000 ton beast of a ship that could dwarf any little yacht of the time.
The ship was scheduled to leave Southampton on April 10th, 1912 due to Olympic, her older sister needing repairs frequently.
After she had left for her destination of NY, stopping at Cherbourg and Queenstown, France, she sailed the ocean towards NY. At 11:40 PM, on April 14th, 1912, she hit an iceberg with a glancing blow on her starboard side, failing to avoid the berg in the process.
In 2 and a half hours, she went down with 1,500 souls aboard.
94 years later, we travel to a suburban Australian home, of a chipmunk with a passion for White Star.
He had an original captain's uniform and hat, and had bought the last living White Star Vessel, RMS Nomadic, Titanic's Tender Ship.
He had completed cross country tour stints with her.
he sighed, standing at his post on her bridge and said "I wish I could do something bigger for White Star.." He knew White Star no longer existed, thanks to Cunard making them merge.
One day, he had an idea to buy the company from Cunard.
He jumped in his private plane, and flew to Cunard's offices.
He said to the CEO of Cunard Lines in a stern tone. "I'm here to talk.. White. Star.. Line." He said authoratively.
The Cunard CEO looked at him dead in the eye and said "Why? That company got ran into the ground years ago due to the Olympic class failure." in a typical CEO tone.
Nate gasped at that and slapped the CEO in the face with his paw.
"Don't you dare disrespect the great Olympic class like that!" He was protective of the legacy of the Olympic class liners.
He was a member of a few Titanic clubs.
The CEO winced in pain and said "OW! Okay okay okay fine! You can have White Star. Just get the trash out of here!" Nate quickly raided the Cunard storage warehouses for anything White Star, including flags and office equipment.
The first 4 months were uneventful.
He reopened White Star's Belfast offices, got the company off the ground again hosting tourism in Nomadic.
After that was done and dusted, he turned his attention to Harland and Wolff.
The Arrol Gantries where Titanic and Olympic were built were gone, every bit of shipbuilding material had left.
The only things left of Harland and Wolff were the drawing offices and the buildings.
He knew he had a plan. He was in his office, thinking of an idea for White Star's next adventure.
Sadly, he could not think of anything that would attract anyone.
He was about to pass out from sleep exhaustion, until an idea came in his head.
"Aha! I got it! I'll raise and rebuild the Titanic!" What did he just say? Did he say he was going to raise and restore the Titanic? How was he going to achieve this? He did have the money thanks to Nomadic's tourism stint, but how was he going to be backed?
A few months later, he met up with the President of the Ship Salvaging Association (SSA) and his associates.
He brought forth this. "As we know, Titanic is split into 3 pieces. The bow, the stern, and the middle section. I have devised a method that has worked on small scale, but hasn't been tested on big scale. Observe."
He showed a simulation of Titanic being cryogenically frozen to protect the hull materials, and being pulled up slowly to the surface to a huge freezer/dock thing. The SSA president said "Are you crazy dude? This won't work. I have a better way." He proceeded to show Nate a simulation of a big container like thing hovering over Titanic's hull, opening up, taking the ship's pieces inside, and closing from where the pieces hit the sea floor. With the water preserved in it as it would have been from day one, they pulled Titanic's hull to the surface in the simulation, placed it aboard a huge barge in 3 big crates, and transporting it to Belfast. Nate smiled and said "That will work beautifully." They started tooling up for the big goal.
After months of preparation, they sail out to Titanic's wreck site, surveying the area for any other debris that can be reused.
The long process takes time, but Titanic's pieces are rising to the surface for the first time in 94 years. In the clear container like things, Nate can see every detail of the ship.
The bow, since it had dug up all the way to the anchor, still had some paint on it below the anchor line, so he had a reference for the coloring.
After the long journey to Belfast, the pieces are unloaded and they throw a bunch of preservatives on them, to keep them from falling apart when unsealed from the crates.
They start by straightening the curve in the bow that had been present when the ship's bow hit the ocean floor.
After that was straightened, they started work on ALL decks, sanding off the rusticles and killing them so they would not eat the iron.
Two years later, Titanic's keel was straightened out to original specifications.
They had to dismantle the hull to put the keel back in place. Gradually, they began to rebuild Titanic from the ground up.
Nate usually took things into his own hands himself, as he knew the ship better than anyone.
Two more years pass, and Titanic's hull is complete, ready to put on the superstructure.
They put in the engines and the boilers required to power them, of which there were 29 on board.
After they did that, they began to slowly build the superstructure, starting from 3rd class up.
When First Class was completed after the third and second class spaces, they took their attention to the boat deck, which needed the bridge to be rebuilt and refitted with the original equipment.
After that, the teak decking on the boat deck was laid down, cementing the final nails into the ship before fitting out.
When launch day came around this year, there was a fanfare of people there, thousands!
Nate grabbed the microphone, and said to the audience of thousands in a proud tone "It's a great pleasure to be here. I, Nate, CEO of the White Star Line, have achieved the impossible! I raised this ship you see before your eyes from the bottom of the ocean, and restored her with my blood, sweat, and tears. She was broken into several pieces when we got her here 10 years ago. Now you see her as a beautiful ship again. I hereby christen this ship to be "Titanic." He broke the champagne bottle on the bow tip, cementing the Titanic's fate to sea. The hull takes 62 seconds to enter the water, like she had done almost 106 years before. She is towed to the fitting out drydock, receiving her facilities and equipment, as well as electrical wiring.
The Titanic was complete. He had done it.
Her sea trials were to commence in 3 days.
During those three days, he roamed the ship to make sure everything was perfect.
He strolled down from the Boat Deck level of the Grand Staircase to the A Deck landing, checking every piece of wood.
He proceeded to do so for the rest of the trip through the ship, checking that every crevice was perfect.
He went down B, C, D, E, F, and G decks. He checked every single space. Titanic was up to his standards.
He was proud of the Harland and Wolff workers who volunteered to help. Three days later, Titanic is towed out to the River Lagen for her sea trials.
Nate ordered Titanic's engines around throughout the trials, shouting orders like "Half ahead!" "Dead Slow!, Full Ahead!" As the trial came to the last maneuver, a crash stop, he ordered her engines to go full astern, with the new propulsion system he had designed himself, it would make both her reciprocating engines and all 3 propellers work in the same way.
Titanic comes to a crash stop at just around 750 yards, acceptable by the Board Of Trade standards.
Her passenger certificate was issued and signed, good for 100 years.
After the trials, Titanic was scheduled to begin her first maiden voyage on the same route on the same day.
However, things were different. Where Titanic foundered originally, she sailed through no issues to New York, completing the first of many voyages to come in the future.
White Star were back in the game, and tickets for the next four voyages were sold out! Even Third Class.
Knowing Nate himself, he would want all classes to be treated equally.
So he bent the rules a bit, and decided to make all facilities on board accessible to passengers regardless of class.
After the first four voyages, Titanic was pulled out of service for a holiday while Olympic took over her duties for 2 years.
During those two years, Nate sailed Titanic all over the world. Nothing could come between a 'munk and his ship.
They even had a Facebook Page called "Titanic Adventures!" where people would post their experiences and amazing reviews.
Here are 2 of those as well as a bonus one.
1. "I loved the smell of the food, and the staff are really nice." -Theodore Seville
2. "I absolutely LOVED it! The food was great, the service was excellent and the ship looks great despite being 106 years old." -Simon Seville
Bonus: "Titanic is an experience you should try." -Jeanette Miller.
Titanic was done as far as the restoration went, and all her voyages are always uneventful.
Nate had made Titanic his home. He practically lives aboard the ship now due to his protectiveness over the liner.
He refuses to let her be scrapped or turned into a hotel. He always keeps her maintainence up to date, and the fire code violations are not present aboard.
Despite being a 106 year old vessel with no GPS or modern controls, Titanic still has a charm.
They recently fitted on board free WiFi for passengers who cannot be without their phones and/or tech.
The WiFi speeds are fast enough to play games without lagging, or drop out on 1080p YouTube videos.
Nate spends most of his time on the bridge, captaining her.
He has braved lots of conditions that no 'munk captain should as far as sea goes.
Titanic's been through hurricanes, rogue waves, its been through it all. He smiles and said to himself "Oh baby... she's piercing the waves again... she is amazing." as he steered her calmly across the sea into the sunset, sounding her call.
So ends the story. I am sorry it wasn't more detailed, I wanted to pump something out.
Anywho,
Nate out!