China Begins Building Full-Size Titanic Replica

Upon completion, the ship will float...745 miles from the sea.

Photo Rendering by Getty Images

After 104 years, it looks like we've finally passed the realm of "too soon." On Wednesday, a Chinese shipbuilding company started construction on a full-scale replica of the RMS Titanic, the Belfast-built ship that struck an iceberg and sunk on its maiden voyage on the night of April 14, 1912. Located in a reservoir in Daying County, Sichuan—about 80 miles from the provincial capital of Chengdu—the ship is being built by Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group and partially funded by the local tourism board at a projected cost of $145 million, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua.
Considering that upon completion, the replica will be floating 745 miles from the sea, the ship clearly isn't being built with transoceanic travel in mind. (The end date remains unspecified.) Instead, it will be a permanently docked tourist attraction in a country where the ship's tragic history captured the national imagination after James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster. The interest has only grown: In 2012, the Chinese release of the 3D version of the film shattered records when opening-weekend box office sales hit $67 million.
When finally finished, the "Sichuan Titanic" will measure 882-feet long by 92-feet wide, just like the original, and interiors will follow available blueprints closely, with a functioning ballroom, theater, swimming pool, and both first- and second-class accommodations for overnight stays. Besides a notable lack of icebergs in its vicinity—although the company's website does advertise a simulated "iceberg experience" (yikes)—there will also be one other major improvement from the original: Wi-Fi. The Titanic replica will be the centerpiece of a planned amusement park that will also include, among other attractions, "the world's largest indoor seaside resort"—yeah, we're confused, too.
Speaking of blueprints: Turns out, the original plans for the ship are not exactly easy to find, which is why despite first being announced in 2014, construction on the replica has only just begun. "After the RMS Titanic sank, nobody saw its complete set of blueprints," Su Shaojun, one of the investors of the project, told China Daily. "Many blueprint fragments found their way into the hands of collectors or remained missing. We spent many years collecting the blueprints from many parts of the world and managed to obtain most of them."
This isn't the first time someone's aimed to build a tribute to the historic, "unsinkable" ship. An Australian tycoon had been working to build a functional Titanic II since at least 2012, but Australian media has reported over the years that it may be more of a pipe dream than a reality. Meanwhile, in the town where the original ship was constructed, the Titanic Belfast pays tribute to the ship in a structure that, externally at least, does not resemble it.

Titanic carbon-copies, a replica of Shakespeare's hometown, and glass-bottomed bridges: Watch out, Dubai—it looks like China's catching up in the global "Sure, why not?" competition.

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