Belfast and the Titanic: Their story goes on

By RAYMOND M. LANE • Washington Post

I knew before I left on a recent trip to Belfast that the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who don't care about the Titanic, the doomed ocean liner that sank 100 years ago, and another tribe of otherwise reasonable people who can't seem to get enough of its tragic story. Count me among the latter.

There are more than 100 Titanic-related museums and monuments worldwide, and on March 31, Belfast added another to the list, unveiling a $150 million tourist center on the slipway where the Titanic was built from 1909 to 1911. At last, said Tim Husbands, president of the foundation running Titanic Belfast, the city has "a focal point for its Titanic and maritime heritage."

For my wife and me, the nautical stuff was secondary. We hoped that the new Titanic Belfast space might have some place for us to make like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the stars of James Cameron's 1997 disaster epic, "Titanic." We wanted to replicate the scene where Leo and Kate, hopelessly in love, stand with their arms outstretched on the bow of the liner as it plows the Atlantic. We're suckers for romance like that, and we're not alone.

Belfast knows this well. The city will spend millions throughout the year on more than 120 events commemorating the new Titanic facility, including an open-air MTV concert at the site, newly commissioned plays, art competitions, even a new television show by the creators of "Downton Abbey."

In Belfast for our four-day Titanic safari, my wife and I headed to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, a sprawling collection of exhibits in a wooded preserve about 7 miles east of central Belfast. Its Titanic exhibit is set in Quonset hut-like domed buildings, with a snack bar, a bookstore, seating for weary feet and a welcoming pace that allows you to slowly absorb the complex story behind the ship and its demise.

Huge blowups of historical photos hang on the curved walls and ceiling, and visitors walk over gantries and trusses as if they were schlepping around the 200-acre Harland and Wolff shipbuilding site where the Titanic was built.

Tour guides with Titanic ties

Susie Millar, a retired BBC broadcaster, is the only Belfast tour guide with a relative who was lost on the ship. She broke our hearts with the story of her grandfather, who was 5 when the Titanic sailed down the Lagan River with his father, Thomas Millar, on board. Before he left, Thomas gave the boy two pennies dated 1912 and told him not to spend them until he returned.

"Of course, he never returned," said Millar, who drove us to the family cottage a few miles downriver, the spot from which her grandfather watched the ship and his father leave Belfast forever.

We spent a morning with another Belfast guide, Billy Scott, who took us to see the great dry dock where the Titanic got her three propellers, rudder and paint job. Soon tourists will be able to descend into the deep well of the dock, he said, where the plan is to show old movies, documentaries and other video treatments about the Titanic.

"It's spooky down there," said Scott, whose great-granduncles worked on the Titanic. "But it'll give you an idea about the lives of men who made this ship."

Titanic Belfast dazzles

Finally, it was time for Titanic Belfast, which bills itself not as a museum -- there are no artifacts -- but as a "sensory experience."

The first impressions were dazzling. Up close, you stand under a star-shaped building whose "points" look like a series of huge ships pulled close to the docks, their prows arching skyward.

Inside, a $22 ticket gains entry to nine galleries, all with huge videos and photos projected onto the walls and storyboards, often accompanied by actors re-creating historic moments. The first gallery describes boomtown Belfast and is followed by a shipyard ride, a six-minute gondola trip through what looks like gantries and work areas where the Titanic was built.

Old videos and photos show the ship's launch, and a gallery nearby offers replicas of the first-, second- and third-class accommodations. Another gallery covers the ship setting off on its journey, and then things get interesting.

The passageway narrows. Air-conditioning kicks in. The area becomes a tunnel, and you're cold. Overhead, computer-driven images of stars and what looks like ice on the horizon appear. There's a beep-beeping sound, and you realize that it's Morse code, the Titanic sending out a distress call.

Then comes a dark room with four large-screen video schematics depicting the Titanic hitting the iceberg, and then slowly sinking. The last board, the largest, shows it going down. Look closely, and you see that the image is superimposed on what appear to be life vests.

The last gallery is a theater with a jumbo screen projecting sparkling images of the ship as it rests at the bottom of the Atlantic today. Provided by American explorer Robert Ballard, who helped discover the Titanic's resting place, the system is connected to eight consoles where visitors can stop, zoom in and draw up information about what's on the large screen.

We also got the media tour of the top floor, a banquet and meeting facility that's generally closed to the public. That's a real shame -- and controversial -- because it's the best part of the building, with a replica of the Titanic's grand staircase and a breathtaking view of the city and of the slipway below where the Titanic was laid out.

They've marked the ship's outline in lights, and as we took in the dizzying sight beyond the glass wall, we realized that the Titanic's bow would have been right about where our noses were.

At last, the Leo and Kate moment we'd been searching for.