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RMS ''Olympic'' was a transatlantic ocean liner, the lead ship of the White Star Line's trio of ''Olympic''-class liners. Unlike her younger sister ships, the ''Olympic'' enjoyed a long and illustrious career, spanning 24 years from 1911 to 1935. This included service as a troopship during the First World War, which gained her the nickname "Old Reliable". ''Olympic'' returned to civilian service after the war and served successfully as an ocean liner throughout the 1920s and into the first half of the 1930s, although increased competition, and the slump in trade during the Great Depression after 1930, made her operation increasingly unprofitable. She was the largest ocean liner in the world for two periods during 1911–13, interrupted only by the brief tenure of the slightly larger (which had the same dimensions but higher gross tonnage owing to revised interior configurations), and then outsized by . ''Olympic'' also retained the title of the largest British-built liner until the was launched in 1934, interrupted only by the short careers of her slightly larger sister ships.〔Chirnside, Mark, (RMS ''Olympic'' Specification File ) (November 2007)〕〔 By contrast with ''Olympic'', the other ships in the class, ''Titanic'' and , did not have long service lives. On the night of 14/15 April 1912, ''Titanic'' collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, claiming more than 1500 lives; ''Britannic'' struck a mine and sank in the Kea Channel in the Mediterranean on 21 November 1916, killing 30 people. == Background == Built in Belfast, Ireland, the RMS ''Olympic'' was the first of the three ''Olympic''-class ocean liners – the others were the and the . They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Line's fleet, which comprised 29 steamers and tenders in 1912. The three ships had their genesis in a discussion in mid-1907 between the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, and the American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, who controlled the White Star Line's parent corporation, the International Mercantile Marine Co. The White Star Line faced a growing challenge from its main rivals Cunard, which had just launched and – the fastest passenger ships then in service – and the German lines Hamburg America and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Ismay preferred to compete on size rather than speed and proposed to commission a new class of liners that would be bigger than anything that had gone before as well as being the last word in comfort and luxury. The company sought an upgrade in their fleet primarily in response to the Cunard giants but also to replace their largest and now outclassed ships from 1890, the and . The former was replaced by ''Olympic'' while ''Majestic'' was replaced by ''Titanic''. ''Majestic'' would be brought back into her old spot on White Star's New York service after ''Titanics loss. The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, who had a long-established relationship with the White Star Line dating back to 1867. Harland and Wolff were given a great deal of latitude in designing ships for the White Star Line; the usual approach was for the latter to sketch out a general concept which the former would take away and turn into a ship design. Cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin. In the case of the ''Olympic''-class ships, a cost of £3 million for the first two ships was agreed plus "extras to contract" and the usual five percent fee. Harland and Wolff put their leading designers to work designing the ''Olympic''-class vessels. It was overseen by Lord Pirrie, a director of both Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line; naval architect Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff's design department; Edward Wilding, Andrews' deputy and responsible for calculating the ship's design, stability and trim; and Alexander Carlisle, the shipyard's chief draughtsman and general manager. Carlisle's responsibilities included the decorations, equipment and all general arrangements, including the implementation of an efficient lifeboat davit design. On 29 July 1908, Harland and Wolff presented the drawings to J. Bruce Ismay and other White Star Line executives. Ismay approved the design and signed three "letters of agreement" two days later authorising the start of construction. At this point the first ship – which was later to become ''Olympic'' – had no name, but was referred to simply as "Number 400", as it was Harland and Wolff's four hundredth hull. ''Titanic'' was based on a revised version of the same design and was given the number 401. Bruce Ismay's father Thomas Henry Ismay had previously planned to build a ship named ''Olympic'' as a sister ship to the ''Oceanic''. The senior Ismay died in 1899 and the order for the ship was cancelled.〔(Oceanic II ) – thegreatoceanliners.com〕 Construction of the ''Olympic'' began three months before ''Titanic'' to ease pressures on the shipyard. Several years would pass before ''Britannic'' would be launched. In order to accommodate the construction of the class, Harland and Wolff upgraded their facility in Belfast; the most dramatic change was the combining of three slipways into two larger ones. ''Olympic''s keel was laid in December 1908 and she was launched on 20 October 1910. For her launch, the hull was painted in a light grey colour for photographic purposes; a common practice of the day for the first ship in a new class, as it made the lines of the ship clearer in the black and white photographs. Her hull was repainted black following the launch.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「RMS Olympic」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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