BEIJING — (CNN) Don’t book your tickets for the Titanic II just yet.
A spokesman for Australian tycoon Clive Palmer told the Belfast Telegraph that the project to bring an exact replica of the original ill-fated ship has been pushed back from 2016 to 2018.
The new ship will be practically identical to the original luxury liner, which famously sank in April 1912 after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage.
The only difference will be that the Titanic II will be wider, have a welded and not riveted hull, and have more lifeboats.
“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,” James McDonald, the global marketing director of Palmer’s company Blue Star Line, told the publication.
The maiden voyage will be from Jiangsu in Eastern China to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The original Titanic was scheduled to sail the Atlantic Ocean from Southampton, England, to New York when it sank 400 miles (644 kilometers) south of Newfoundland, Canada.
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