The RMS Titanic is launched in Belfast
On this day · 31 May 1911
On May 31, 1911, the bare steel hull of the Titanic slid into Belfast Lough before a crowd of thousands—nearly a year before its only voyage.
On May 31, 1911, the steel hull of the RMS Titanic was launched at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast. A launch put only the empty hull into the water; the engines, funnels, cabins and fittings that made Titanic a liner were still to come, and the ship would not sail on its maiden voyage until April 1912.
The hull had taken roughly two years to build, rising on a slipway specially strengthened to carry one of the largest moving objects ever made. To send it down the ways, workers smeared the slipway with tons of soap, tallow and grease so the hull could slide cleanly into Belfast Lough.
The launch of the completed steel hull was heavily publicized, drawing a crowd reported in the tens of thousands.
Titanic was a sister ship to the Olympic, then fitting out nearby—two giants built side by side for the White Star Line.
Sources & references
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