An Australian billionaire who financed the construction of a replica ocean going liner has said how he deeply regretted having the vessel built by a Chinese state owned company.
Clive Palmer, who amassed a fortune from real estate and mining was said to be devastated after his dream liner – Titanic II – hit a jellyfish on its maiden voyage and sank with the loss of over 1500 lives.
The ship - built by the CSC Jinling Shipyard of Shaghai - took nearly a fortnight to complete and was said to be an exact replica of the world’s most iconic ocean going liner.....even down to the risible time it took to reach the ocean floor.
The ship was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York and had only been in the water for five minutes when one of the main propellers stopped working. Engineers rushed to the baulk head to repair the faulty mechanism only to find the instruction manual had been hastily translated from the Chinese and appeared to be tips on how to slow-roast a Mandarin duck.
It was not long after the propeller stopped working that one of the ship’s funnels broke off when a seagull landed on it, the boiler room sprang a leak after the rivets popped out and the whipstaff steering column came off in someone’s hand.
But it was the 2ft jellyfish that finally put paid to the liner’s maiden voyage, appearing from nowhere out of the dense, swirling smog caused by the ship’s melting furnace and ripping a 75mtr gash in the plastic hull.
Within seconds of the impact the jellyfish drifted away to safety, leaving the stricken 10 tonne liner heading for the ocean floor.
Screams from the passengers could be heard on land just a few miles away but well-wishers and family members who had turned out in their thousands to wish their loved ones ‘bon-voyage’, had assumed it was because the lucky travellers had finally managed to escape the festering shit-hole known to locals as Southampton.
The ship’s log later revealed radio operators had signalled frantically for help, not realising the Zhongan Technology Co. operating system had not included batteries when it arrived in the post and the newsagent on the corner that usually supplied the Chinese company with power pack units had been closed when the ship left port.
Mr.Palmer has said this would be his first and last venture into the ship building game and was instead turning his attention to the world of fashion.....and in particular men’s wear...after coming across old photos of a particularly fetching pair of sturdy mens slacks worn by the Australian folk hero Ned Kelly.
‘And they’ll be made here in Australia’ added the roly-poly billionaire ‘which will guarantee they’ll have more metal in them than that fucking Chinese ship ever did’
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Australian billionaire to build Ned Kelly trousers
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Gerontius
offlineMemberPosted 9 months ago #
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