The first keel plate for Olympic was laid on December 16, 1908, three months before Titanic's keel was laid down in the adjacent slip. The first of Ismay's three giants was photographed heavily during her construction, as nothing like her had ever been built. Much larger than the Cunarders she was to outdo in size and luxury, Olympic's massive frame rose from underneath the gantry like an enormous skeleton, inspiring awe as well as trepidation in the residents of Belfast. To the nearly 15,000 men who worked the steel and iron into place, she was a source of great pride. At the end of a long day riveting plates and muscling beams into place, the streets would be flooded by the deluge of workers staggering home for a few hours sleep before heading back to the shipyard the next morning.

Thomas Andrews was the chief deign engineer. As director of Harland & Wolff's design department, he was instrumental in turning Bruce Ismay's dreams into reality. Andrews was well-liked and was always one of the first to arrive at the ship yard in the morning, blueprints stuffed into the pockets of his coat. He oversaw every aspect of Olympic (and Titanic's) construction, from the laying of the first keel plate to the last bit of varnish applied to her oak fittings. Andrews took great pride in his ships. When he sailed on them, he always carried a notebook. He was constantly taking notice of squeaky doors or steps, a loose rail, a scratch on wood. He was also constantly designing. Noting rooms that were too small or too large, hallways that should be this or lounges that could be that. Thomas Andrews loved building ships.



The art of shipbuilding has changed drastically since the early 1900's. Today, welding, computers and advanced machinery make for smooth, nearly perfect hull shapes, with hydrodynamic efficiency far surpassing the riveted iron hull. But the early years of the 20th century saw the established skill of creating a vessel move forward with the rapid pace of technological development. The graceful lines of the Olympic Class liner, with the gentle sloop towards amidships, the hourglass curvature of the forward bow, the intricate plating on the schooner bow; all done by hand.
The construction process could not start until Harland & Wolff constructed the gantries under which Olympic, Titanic and Gigantic would be built. They invited various firms to bid on the task. Thomas Arol and Company of Glasgow won the contract. The gantries were enormous, far larger than anything built before. They were each 840 feet long, 150 feet wide and over 220 feet tall. The tops of the structures were fitted with mobile cranes that could lift 3 tons each. At the same time Harland & Wolff purchased a secondhand floating crane for use at the fitting out basin. This crane could lift 250 tons. The lifting capacity would be needed to load the massive machinery that would be housed in Olympic's belly.

Once the gantries were complete, Olympic's keel, the longitudinal steel beam that serves as the backbone of a ship, was laid down and the frame extended out and upward from the keel.


"The skeleton within the scaffolding began to shape, at the site of which men held their breaths. It was the shape of a ship, a ship so monstrous and unthinkable that it towered there over the buildings and dwarfed the very mountains by the water...with a rudder as big as a giant elm tree, with propellers the size of windmills - everything was on a nightmare scale..."
                               - Belfast resident; 1910

Indeed Olympic and Titanic were of a scale never before seen. From keel to the the boat deck was nearly ninety feet. The intricately riveted hull plates were of the highest quality steel. The rudder assembly alone took dozens of men and a lot of sweat to attach to the keel. The pair of four-crank, triple-expansion reciprocating steam engines was four stories tall and weighed 990 tons! The engines were assembled separately and installed with large cranes; lowered through the empty hull before the deck plating was put into place.
As Olympic neared completion, publicity increased as White Star boasted her dimensions and depicted her luxuriousness in sketches and diagrams. The public was enthralled and engineering publications dedicated entire issues to the new ship and her sister. The press, learning about the watertight compartments that divided the hull, dubbed the new liner(s) "unsinkable"; a label that White Star neither confirmed nor denied, stating simply that their new ships would be the largest and safest afloat in addition to, of course, being the most elegant vessels ever to grace the sea.

Unlike their rivals, White Star Line did not use champagne to christen their ships. Many Titanic films depict a ceremony in which a bottle is smashed against the hull to get it moving down the slip, but in reality it was much less regal. From a platform situated under the bow, a launch trigger was activated and the wooden timbers holding the ship in place were knocked out one by one. Hydraulics assisted and the slipway was greased with tons and tons of soap and grease.

Olympic was launch on October 20th, 1910. As was the tradition with the first ship of a new class of liner, her hull was painted white and red; the White Star colors. Thousands of people gathered to watch her slip into the water for the first time.




As Olympic's 882 foot long hull slid into the water, nearby ships blasted their whistles and the throngs of people lining the river bank cheered. Reaching a speed of nearly 12 knots, it took a full minute for Olympic to complete her journey. Her momentum was halted by six anchor chains and two piles of drag anchors. Then tugs moved in, got hold of her and towed her to the outfitting basin where her interiors and her heavy machinery would be installed.

The funnels were elliptical; 24ft 6in. by 19ft and were more than 75 feet tall. The images of a funnel being transported through town and raised off the ground by a crane give a good indication of just how enormous they were. The forward three funnels were functional, providing exhaust for the 29 boilers below. The fourth funnel, as is well known, was a dummy; the original plans called for three but in the wake of Lusitania's and Mauretania's success it was decided that four funnels were essential. The fourth funnel served as a ventilation shaft for the engine room, which was to be extremely hot and smoky from the boilers and the engines themselves.



Olympic was moved from the outfitting basin to the new Thompson Graving dock. The Belfast Harbor Commission had constructed the dry dock for the purpose of accommodating the new super liners. Graving docks were called such because of their resemblance to graves. Ironic considering that the grave dock was the final element in the birth of a liner. In dry dock, the hull is painted and checked for weaknesses while work on the superstructure and interiors proceeds. The task of turning Olympic into a floating palace was a monumental one to be sure. Today, large cruise ships are built mostly by machine; the hulls are assembled in sections and the cabins are prefabricated and inserted in blocks. In 1911 the work was accomplished only through the sweat and tears of thousands of Belfast shipbuilders and artisans of every craft.

From Siam came the finest teak, fabrics from Holland and steel from Scotland arrived at the Harland & Wolff ship yards to complete the liner and ready her for service. When she was completed, Olympic weighed in at 46,439 tons. At 882 feet long and 90 feet wide amidships, she was the largest moving object ever created. She passed her sea trials with flying colors and was officially handed over to White Star on May 31, 1911; the same day Titanic was launched. After watching her sister ship slip into the water for the first time, Olympic ferried Bruce Ismay and company to Liverpool. Then it was on to Southampton for her maiden voyage.


 

   



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