All aboard to trace doomed Titanic voyage

The huge White Star liner RMS Titanic in dock at Belfast to receive her finishing touches. Phto / Supplied

For some, it may sound too much like tempting fate - and for others, it smacks of "disaster voyeurism".

But for more than 2000 Titanic enthusiasts, the chance to mark the centenary of the maritime disaster by sailing on a large cruise ship to the very spot where the tragedy happened is proving difficult to resist.

A British company has almost sold out two cruises for people to mark the anniversary on April 15 by following the route of the Titanic to where it struck an iceberg.

The booming demand for Titanic-related travel has led another travel company to offer the chance to explore the wreckage of the ill-fated vessel in a Russian-built submarine next northern summer at a cost of US$59,000 ($76,000) a person. Places for that voyage are already "very limited".

The tourism boom is part of a general revival of the fascination with the Belfast-built steamship which will see special festivals take place on both sides of the Atlantic as well as the screening of a 3D version of James Cameron's Oscar-winning film and a big-budget ITV drama by Downton Abbey writer Julian Fellowes.

Such is the interest in places on the MS Balmoral, the vessel retracing the route of the Titanic's maiden voyage, that a waiting list for cancellations has closed.

Some of those who have booked berths costing up to £5995 ($12,100) are having costumes made to re-create the appearance of the original passengers, while there have also been requests from musicians to audition for places in the modern version of the string quartet that played as the flagship of the White Star Line fleet began to list.

Miles Morgan, managing director of Titanic Memorial Cruises, the Bristol company organising the events, said places on the cruise from Southampton had sold out just weeks after going on sale, with the second cruise likely to sell out by next month.

He said: "We have been approached by news crews all over the world who want to film our recreation of the fateful voyage. We could probably have filled the entire vessel just with journalists wanting to be there. The interest has come from all over the globe - we've had people from 24 different countries booking."

The culmination of restaging the Titanic's voyage - which will see the Balmoral, a chartered vessel belonging to the cruise line Fred Olsen, sail to the point off Newfoundland, Canada, where the liner collided with the iceberg - will be a memorial service at 2.20am local time on April 15 - the moment when what was then the world's largest passenger ship sank.

A second vessel chartered by the cruise company to carry 694 people will meet the Balmoral at the site of the sinking after sailing from New York en route to Southampton. And plans are being made for the wireless station at Cape Race in Newfoundland which received the Titanic's SOS in morse code to repeat the message.

Among those on board the Balmoral will be relatives of victims and survivors of the Titanic, including Philip Littlejohn, the grandson of Alexander Littlejohn, who was a steward in the first-class section and survived by rowing away in one of the 16 lifeboats. The small number of lifeboats meant barely a third of the passengers and crew could ever have been saved.

Passengers on the recreated voyage will dine on the same menus offered to the 1514 people who died and the 710 who survived when the ship struck the iceberg at 11.40pm. Among the items from the 11-course first-class dinner will be oysters, roast squab and sauteed chicken Lyonnaise.

Morgan, who pointed out that the engineering and safety rules of modern ships mean that icebergs now posed no danger to the cruise, said it was wrong to criticise the commemoration as "voyeuristic".

"I take my lead from those people who are coming on board who lost relatives in the disaster or whose family members survived. They have all said that they could not think of any better way to mark the memory of those who were lost than being at the site of the sinking to pay their respects.

- INDEPENDENT