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AN INCREDIBLE full-scale replica of the doomed Titanic has been left abandoned and rusting in a Chinese theme park for years.
The mammoth model ship cost a whopping £130million to create and is almost identical to the famous cruise liner – even being an almighty 800ft long and weighing in at 50,000 tons.
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PA:Press AssociationThe ambitious plan to build a theme park and museum dedicated to one of the most well-known global tragedies was created by Chinese investor Su Shaojun.
He got the idea after seeing how well James Cameron‘s 1997 classic Titanic film did over in China.
The boat has been almost identically modelled off the original White Star ship that set sail in 1912 but unlike the Titanic it never had any passengers step on board.
It has been sat in a theme park in the Sichuan Province since 2016 and has only collected dust, rust and dirt since its bizarre conception.
Anchored in the Romandisea Seven Star International Culture Tourism Resort the ship has luxury banquet halls, theatres, observation platforms and even swimming pools on board.
The design team wanted to “get it as close as we can” to the original cruise that made headlines when it set sail for New York as the world’s largest ship at the time.
Guests were set to enjoy a five star evening on the boat despite it only functioning through a steam engine to simulate a journey at sea.
It could even accommodate 2,400 passengers and 900 staff as well as having an interactive museum inside.
But the project faced major scrutiny globally for the idea to give guests a “hitting the iceberg experience”.
The replica ship would feel like a sinking vessel out at sea at the end of the stay – something the families of those affected in the 1912 disaster strongly condemned.
Pictures today show the unfinished hulk covered in a copper muse after years of rusting away on land.
The upper deck is empty outside of missing chunks of the cruise and construction equipment left deserted after the plan crumbled to pieces.
To make the process even more undesirable, it took seven long years to get it in the miserable state it is in right now.
The real Titanic – which sunk exactly 112 years ago on Sunday – took just over a year to fully complete.
The ship was set to be the first time a full sized model of the Titanic was ever built as even during the filming for the blockbuster movie the team only had a 90 per cent to scale replica.
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The plans for the replica model were to allow guests to ride on board in a simulation journey of the actual Titanic voyageRex Features
An artists impression of what the Romandisea Titanic could have looked likeRex FeaturesCEO of the failed Titanic Su Shaojin said: “For China, the Titanic represents something of universal value.
“Romandisea will become a world-class tourist destination with a noble soul and spiritual pursuit.”
To achieve his dream, Seven Star Energy Investment and Wuchang Shipbuilding splashed out £110million on the clone.
More money has been pumped into the project since then to try and get the idea afloat but there has been very little success.
Tickets to stay on the ship would’ve set guests back £400 for a cabin room or nearly £14,000 for luxury accommodation, said reports at the time.
IMPENDING FAILURE
The Romandisea Titanic was severely delayed by errors in construction and financial woes in 2017 leaving it half-finished.
But this wasn’t the only trouble the ship ran in to as locals and onlookers blasted the concept of a replica ship based on a fatal disaster.
Many locals labelled it as a “waste of money” after they had already witnessed several replica ideas fall short of the expectation such as the poor imitation of the USS Enterprise.
But the Romandisea Titanic team’s hopes finally sank after severe backlash from furious families of those affected by the 1912 tragedy.
The Titanic tragedy
The Titanic was a piece of history when it first set off from Southampton on April 14, 1912.
It was the largest cruise ship ever at the time and carried around 2,224 people on board.
But the doomed ship sank just five days into the journey after hitting an iceberg on its voyage to New York taking the lives of over 1,500 people.
The iceberg was around 100 feet tall and came from a glacier in Greenland.
Musicians famously played for two hours and five minutes as the ship sank.
Only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible boats were carried on board the giant cruise – enough to accommodate 1,178 people.
This meant that only one-third of the ship’s total capacity could possibly be saved but in the end only 700 managed to safely escape.
Ever since, the Titanic has been sitting 12,500ft below the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean and is reportedly deteriorating at a worrying pace.
Some believe the wreckage could disappear completely by 2030, all because of “hungry” bacteria in the ocean.
The story of the ship has gone on to play a pivotal role in culture across the world.
A film about the tragic tale has grossed almost £2billion worldwide and starred actors like Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio.
As several mimic ships have been made such as the Romandisea Titanic.
On June 18, 2023, 11 decades after the sinking of the Titanic, a research submersible visiting the wreckage went missing.
The US Coast Guard sent out a search for survivors after the vessel vanished with five people on board but all ended up dead when they ran out of oxygen.
Jean Legg, whose dad was a steward on the boat and one of 705 survivors, said: “My dad lived to be nearly 90 and the sights and sounds of people fighting for their lives stayed with him to the end of his days.
“If he knew this was being replicated, I think he’d be turning in his grave.
“I find it very upsetting, I feel they could have replicated another liner – it’s in poor taste.”
Robert Burr, whose grandfather was also a steward on the ship, told the BBC: “It doesn’t suit the situation.”
As American Bruce Beverage said he was asked to work on the ship but quickly declined saying “it would be in poor taste”.
THE UNSINKABLE SHIP - FASCINATING FACTS ABOUT THE TITANIC
The Titanic was the world's largest passenger ship when it entered service - measuring 269 metres - and was the largest man-made moving object on Earth.
It burned around 600 tonnes of coal a day and almost 100 tonnes of ash were ejected into the sea every 24 hours.
There were 20,000 bottles of beer on board, 1,500 bottles of wine and 8,000 cigars – all for the use of first-class passengers.
Up to 246 injuries and two deaths were recorded during the ship’s 26-month construction in Belfast.
The last supper served to first-class passengers consisted of 11 courses.
First-class passengers were given a book containing 352 songs, with musicians on board required to know all of them in case requests were made.
James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic about the disaster has grossed more than £1.5bn, won 11 Oscars and is one of the highest grossing film of all time.
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The creator of the project said the idea came about after the film Titanic was a smash hit in China
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