Above: Olympic appears on a sailing list issued by the White Star Line in March 1926. (Author’s Collection.)

Olympic entered service in 1911 as the world’s largest ship. Although she was surpassed in spring 1912 by Titanic, she regained the title after her sister’s loss only to lose it to Imperator in 1913. From 1913, she was the largest British ship in service. Although Aquitania could claim the title after 1914, based on her length and breadth, Olympic’s gross tonnage (which rose after the 1913 refit) was greater than her rival’s and remained so until her withdrawal from service in 1935. Gross tonnage is a better measure of size, given that it is a measure of enclosed space. Britannic claimed the title of the largest British ship when she was in service from December 1915 to November 1916. In the 1920s, as White Star’s ‘Ship Magnificent,’ Olympic was advertised as the largest triple-screw steamer in the world.

The specifications given here relate to Olympic as she was in the mid 1920s, prior to the 1927-28 refit when her net tonnage figure changed and tourist third class was introduced. However, the vast majority of these measurements and figures remained the same in subsequent years. A notable exception is the passenger numbers, as tourist third class was introduced alongside second class (before second class was abolished entirely by the end of 1931), first class staterooms became tourist class, and third class shrank as Olympic’s service continued in the early 1930s. As always, different documents give multiple different figures for passenger and crew capacities, and those here should be seen in that context. Even here, the alternate first and second class accommodation information is contradictory.

Some dimensions are given in feet as decimals: for instance, the ship’s length of 882 feet 9 inches was given as 882.75 feet, which has been rounded to 882.7 feet (and is sometimes seen as 882.8 feet in other sources). However, to remain faithful to the original source material the imperial measurements have been given in both decimals and feet and inches, throughout the file; for instance the length of the single ended boilers is given as 11 feet 9 inches, or 11'9" in short. In regard to the watertight subdivision, there were originally fifteen main transverse watertight bulkheads, and clearly the figure here of sixteen was a product of changes during the 1912-13 refit rather than her original construction.

The horsepower figures, given for both the reciprocating engines and the turbine, are not a maximum that the engines could develop. However, they do seem higher than the average power developed in normal service to enable Olympic to maintain her service speed. While 46,000 horsepower was required for a speed of 21 knots, the figures given here total 55,000 horsepower. In 1911, it was stated that Olympic’s engines developed 59,000 horsepower, so that was apparently the maximum figure developed up to that time.