What a Rich Guy Can Do: Clive Palmer Is Building a Titanic Redo in China

14 January 2013

What’s the good of being Australian Mining magnate (and, according to Forbes, almost billionaire) Clive Palmer if you can’t press the redo button on history?

And what better to redo than one of the most colossal failures of all time? That’s what Palmer intends to do, reports Bloomberg, by building a, “21st-century replica of the Titanic and sail[ing] it from England to New York accompanied by the Chinese navy by the end of 2016.… He has signed a first-stage agreement with Nanjing-based CSC Jinling Shipyard to build the ship as part of a planned fleet of luxury liners, the Gold Coast.”

Why would someone take on such a “titanic” task? Here’s a list of five possible monomaniacal reasons:

1. Remaking History: The most obvious reason to rebuild an updated replica of the Titanic is simply to reclaim the great ship from the mishaps of history.

2. Raising the Asia Pacific: The combination of an Australian funding a Chinese-made version of the (short-lived)  triumph of the early 20th century UK shipbuilding industry in the 21st century is a potent symbol of the rise of the Asia Pacific as an economic power.

3. Journey to the Past: There is also something of the re-enactment about this project. Like in Jack Finney’s famous time-travel novel, Time and Again, there is a sense that if we recreate the physical details of the past we can reenter an historical period.

4. Centennial Madness: Perhaps between the release of James Cameron’s Titanic in 3-D, the opening of the Titanic Belfast museum, and a ton of BBC coverage this month just has the RMS engraved in Palmer’s mind.

5. Because I Can: But when you get right down to it, Parker is attracted to the project because he believes he will have the means to fund it. His fortune has been estimated at $5.3 billion in BRW magazine’s rankings, but Forbes listed him at only $795 million on this year’s Rich List (we’re a hard crowd!). Wealth alone, whether millions or billions, doesn’t guarantee that the new Titanic will make the self-imposed 2016 deadline for its maiden voyage. Bloomberg quotes Hur Sung Duck, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul as saying, “That’s a huge jump for a country that builds mostly bulk ships [used for carrying coal, iron ore and grains]. I seriously find it difficult to believe it can be built by that time.”

So sinking my not be the problem this time, but getting afloat at all. But viewing a billionaire and the Chinese shipbuilding industry as underdogs in this undertaking gives it all a certain poignance. Maybe the greatest luxury is being able to learn from the past’s mistakes.