'Mini-Titanic' Opens As New Museum In Belfast

A passenger vessel which is arguably the last true link to the Titanic and the White Star Line is being unveiled as a new museum in Belfast.

Some £9m has been spent over the last seven years restoring the SS Nomadic to how she looked in 1912.

As a tender to the Titanic, she ferried first and second class passengers from the docks at Cherbourg in France to the Titanic for their doomed journey.

The SS Nomadic was built alongside the Titanic in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast using all the same design characteristics.

She is often described as the "mini-Titanic" because she is exactly one quarter of the size of the famous ship. The vessel is also now the last remaining White Star Line ship in the world.

Speaking ahead of its opening to the public this weekend, the chairman of the Nomadic Charitable Trust, Denis Rooney, said: "This is the closest anyone is going to get to walking on the decks of the Titanic.

"You are going to be walking in the footsteps of the passengers who were transported to the Titanic on that one fateful journey and you will be enjoying the same luxury and class as the first class passengers."

He added: "When you come on to the Nomadic you can touch the rivets, the same rivets the craftsmen of the Titanic drilled in, you can touch the hull.

"It certainly makes it worthwhile coming to Belfast just to see and experience the Titanic."

After the sinking of the Titanic, SS Nomadic continued to serve as part of the White Star Line and then Cunard. During those years the ship carried a number of celebrities, including Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

The former Titanic tender vessel also saw active service as a mine sweeper and troop carrier in both World Wars and was then a floating restaurant in Paris for 30 years.

Enthusiasts in Northern Ireland started a campaign in 2005 to save the Nomadic from the scrap heap and to have her returned to the city where she was built. The ship was bought at auction in 2006 for around £200,000 by Northern Ireland's Department of Social Development.

The Nomadic Charitable Trust has spent the last seven years restoring the vessel to her former glory and she is now docked in Belfast's new Titanic Quarter, close to the Titanic visitor's centre.

Susie Millar's great-grandfather Thomas Millar worked as an engineer on the Titanic and died when she sank. Miss Millar now runs Titanic Tours in Belfast and was married on board the SS Nomadic before the restoration began.

She said, "The opening of SS Nomadic will add a valuable dimension to the Titanic tourism trail here in Belfast. People come here to see the authentic and the genuine.

"Being able to step on board the only White Star ship in the world, a scaled-down version of Titanic, will be such an amazing experience.

"Belfast is very lucky to be able to offer this completely unique attraction. It is as close as you can get to the Titanic."

The addition of the vessel as a floating museum will add to Belfast's already growing tourism industry based around the famous liner.

Since the Titanic Belfast visitors' centre opened last year it has become one of Northern Ireland's top tourist destinations, with more than 650,000 passing through its doors in its first nine months.