Mayor calls for Titanic ferry report
By Linda McKee
13 January 2006
The debate over the merits of a mission to save the Nomadic continued today.
The Lord Mayor of Belfast urged a full condition report to be carried out on the Nomadic to determine whether the former White Star Line vessel is worth saving.
But campaigners battling to bring the Titanic-era ferry back to Belfast said she has already received the seal of approval from Harland & Wolff, the company that built her.
The luxury vessel carried film stars and celebrities to the Titanic as they embarked on her first and only voyage in 1912.
Now moored at Le Havre in northern France, the only remaining White Star Line vessel is up for auction in less than two weeks - and if no buyer is found, she may be sold for scrap.
North Belfast MLA Nigel Dodds has called for Belfast City Council to join the campaign to bring the Nomadic back to the city where she was built, but Belfast mayor Wallace Browne said today: "I don't think the city council itself should undertake such an operation without the support of the Department for Culture, Arts and Leisure.
"A full engineering report should be made to see what condition it's in."
But Kathleen Neill, chief executive of Belfast Industrial Heritage Ltd, which is campaigning to bring the Nomadic back, said Harland & Wolff carried out a survey two years ago and found she was in remarkably good condition.
"The hull density had hardly deteriorated at all. They built them good in Harland & Wolff," she said.
"She's in remarkably good condition, given her age and her history. She was built at the same time as the Olympic and the Titanic and also served in two world wars.
"The level of restoration will depend on what we find when we take her out of the water."
The Nomadic has also received favourable reports following surveys carried out by DCAL and a French company that was interested in converting her into floating offices, Mrs Neill said.
"The Harland & Wolff supercedes them all because it's the latest and it was done by shipbuilders."
As well as the reserve price of 250,000 euros, it will cost an estimated
