Australian billionaire says Titanic replica will set sail in 2018

Here’s to hoping this voyage goes smoother than the last.

Despite delays, the Titanic II will set sail in 2018 if Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has anything to say about it.

Plans to create a replica of the Titanic, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912, were first announced in 2012, with plans to begin carrying passengers in 2016. The ship will be mirrored after the original with “exquisite First Class rooms” and  “comfortable Third Class accommodations,” according to the Titanic II Blue Star Line website.

Palmer, who owns an Australian mining company and Blue Star Line, predicted in 2013 that the Titanic II "will be a real financial bonanza" which will force him to "have to build Titanic III."

But setbacks in producing the ship have many questioning whether the nod to the ill-fated “unsinkable ship” will ever come to fruition.

Now with a launch date of 2018, James McDonald, the global marketing director of Palmer's company Blue Star Line, says people are lining up “to be a part” of the project, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

The ship will be able to carry over 2,000 passengers and will be equipped with Turkish baths, swimming pools and exercise rooms.

"The new Titanic will, of course, have modern evacuation procedures, satellite controls, digital navigation and radar systems and all those things you'd expect on a 21st-century ship," McDonald told the Telegraph.

The Titanic II will not be making the same voyage as the original ship. Instead the first voyage will travel from Jiangsu, China, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, according to McDonald.

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