A descendant of famous American socialite and Titanic survivor, Margaret ‘Molly’ Brown, has agreed to join the advisory board of Blue Star Line Chairman Mr Clive Palmer’s Titanic II project. Mr Palmer said Helen Benziger – the great granddaughter of Molly Brown – will also be attending a black-tie dinner in New York on December 4 to mark the project’s global launch.
“Helen has agreed to join Blue Star Line’s Titanic II advisory board whose members will consist of descendants of crew and passengers of the original Titanic,” Mr Palmer said.

“These advisory board members will be tasked with providing suggestions and recommendations to Blue Star Line to ensure the Titanic II appropriately and respectfully pays homage to the original Titanic, its crew and passengers.”

Molly Brown, a socialite, philanthropist and activist, became famous due to her survival of the 1912 sinking of Titanic and was later dubbed ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’.
A first class passenger on Titanic, she was regarded as a heroine for her efforts to get the lifeboat she was on to return and search for survivors. Her life was the subject of a Broadway musical and a Hollywood movie.

Mr Palmer said his plan to build Titanic II and sail her from Southampton to New York on her maiden passenger voyage for his Blue Star Line Pty Ltd in late 2016 had generated worldwide interest. “Since we announced our plan in April we’ve had a huge amount of interest, particularly from people wanting to know how they can secure a booking for the maiden voyage,” Mr Palmer said.
The vision and scope of Mr Palmer’s plan to build a modern version of the famous ship will be shared when today’s equivalent of the high-society passengers of a century ago meet over formal dinners in New York and London in December.

After a grand dinner at the Natural History Museum in London on December 1, a second black-tie dinner will be held aboard the retired aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, a national historic landmark moored in New York Harbour which is now home to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.
“We successfully staged a 13-course ‘Captain’s Atlantic Dinner’ last month in Australia featuring dishes from the original Titanic menus, so staging marquee events in landmark locations on both sides of the Atlantic appealed to us as an excellent way to bring together people there who are intrigued by the Titanic II concept, in order to share our vision behind it,” Mr Palmer said.
Dishes served at the Titanic-themed dinner at Mr Palmer’s luxury Palmer Coolum Resort in Queensland included recreations of Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce and Filet Mignons Lili from Titanic’s first class menu.

Titanic II, a full scale version of the original ship, is being designed by the Finnish-based Deltamarin ship design and marine engineering company and will be built by leading Chinese shipbuilders CSC Jinling Shipyard, which since 1996 has built vessels for customers from more than 20 countries.