Boat named “Titanic 2” sinks on maiden voyage
A replica of the upper section of the fourth funnel of the Titanic is towed along the river Thames towards Tower Bridge on November 3, 2010 in London, England. The replica funnel has been created to launch a new exhibition of artefacts recovered from the wreck of the Titanic cruise liner which sunk in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912.
A boat named “Titanic 2” has lived up to its name by sinking on its maiden voyage in an English harbor, but there were no icebergs in sight.
Mark Wilkinson, from Birmingham in central England, had recently bought the Titanic 2 boat — which, unlike its ill-fated namesake, is a 16-foot cabin cruiser — and had taken it to the sea for its first outing, a fishing trip off Dorset in the south of the country.
As he returned to West Bay harbor, the boat began rapidly taking on water and Wilkinson was forced to abandon ship as it went down. The incident was caught on camera by a local woman, and pictures show him clinging to a rail on the boat before being rescued.
"If it wasn't for the harbormaster I would have gone down with the Titanic," Wilkinson, who was unhurt, told local media afterwards.
"It's all a bit embarrassing and I got pretty fed up with people asking me if I had hit an iceberg."
Coastguards helped Wilkinson retrieve the boat, and loaded it onto a trailer to be taken for repairs. The Titanic 2 is believed to have sunk after an old repair job came apart and caused to boat to take on water, the Dorset Echo reports.
Harbormaster James Radcliffe said there was a six-inch hole in the boat’s fiberglass hull.
"It wasn't a very big boat — I think an ice cube could have sunk it!" one eyewitness said, according to the Daily Mail.
The ocean liner Titanic — which was the world’s largest passenger steamship — sank 99 years ago on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York. It went down after hitting an iceberg, resulting in the deaths of 1,517 people.