It will be a night — actually, eight nights — to remember.
Yesterday at 5 p.m., I set sail aboard the Azamara Journey from the West Side’s Pier 88, joining nearly 700 Titanic fanatics, historians and descendants of original passengers on a centennial re-creation of the doomed voyage.
It’s the first of its kind, a breed of disaster tourism that’s uniquely suited to the Titanic. (It’s impossible to imagine anyone wanting to take part in a simulation of, say, the Hindenburg.)
And, of course, there’s the added thrill of tempting fate: It couldn’t possibly happen twice, right?
“Some people think going on this cruise is a little morbid,” said Bill Miller, a Titanic historian from New Jersey. “But people are fascinated by disaster — it has an electric pull.”
The ship is currently on course for Halifax, Nova Scotia, and will dock there tomorrow so that passengers can disembark and visit Fairview Lawn Cemetery, which is full of the tragedy’s victims. “There is plenty to see and do,” reads the itinerary.
The ship heads back out to sea at 5 p.m., setting course for 41°43’57”N, 49°56’49”W — the site of the sinking and the wreckage, which now sits more than 12,000 feet below sea level.
Saturday will be “a day of reflection,” according to the organizers. The ship will rendezvous with a sister cruise, which left from Southampton, England (the Titanic’s original launch site) Sunday.
It all leads up to an epic ceremony, at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, to commemorate the exact moment the ship slipped from earthly view.
This cruise then heads back to New York, which is where the survivors of the Titanic were brought to port by the Carpathia. They disembarked at Pier 56 on the West Side — and even then, class prevailed, with traumatized survivors leaving the ship according to their rank and status.
Historian Miller is one of several Titanic celebrities aboard, and it’s clear that this is the 21st century version of the class system: civilian passengers speak about Miller and other Titanic luminaries — including artist Ken Marschall, who has painted more than 100 portraits of the ship and who is also on board — in hushed tones.
But it’s the regular passengers who fascinate. There’s Bob Daughtry, 49, a history teacher from Houston who was so worried that his principal wouldn’t give him the time off that “I didn’t sleep for several days.”
Daughtry’s been fascinated with the Titanic since reading Walter Lord’s “A Night to Remember,” in the fourth grade. “It was the personal stories that got to me,” he said. “How would you have handled it? Would you have been in a lifeboat, or standing on the deck, waving? I hope I would’ve stayed. It was obviously unnecessary to die, as we all know — most of those lifeboats were only half full.”
He has packed a tuxedo for this weekend’s ceremonies.
“It seemed like the respectful thing to do,” he said.
There’s also 20-year-old Samuel Donelly, a cadet at Valley Forge Military College who’s traveling with his grandmother Maxine, sister Jill and mother Jane Austen. (“I’m not kidding,” she said.) The entire clan, save Donelly, was dressed in Victorian-era skirts and high-collared blouses.
Donelly has been obsessed with the Titanic since he was 5, and would watch James Cameron’s 1997 film on a loop — fast-forwarding to the sinking and rewinding and rewinding until the tape broke.
“His teacher thought he needed psychiatric help,” said Austen. “I’m not kidding — I had a big fight with her about it.”
Donelly went on to build a 7-foot-long replica of the ship out of LEGOs, and his mother encouraged his fixation — in fact, she owns a shelf that was part of a first-class suite on the Titanic, lives in a Victorian house in Cape May, NJ, and dresses in 19th century clothing in her downtime. “I also have Mrs. Lincoln’s hat and George Washington’s wig,” she said.
Byron Matson, a Titanic historian since 1953, made the trip from Sedalia, Mo., with his wife, Judy. Matson is the owner of a 6-foot-long lighted model of the Titanic, which he says he loaned to director Cameron while he was researching his 1997 epic about the disaster.
“We’re also friends with Edwina MacKenzie, one of the survivors,” he said.
Patrick Druckenmiller might be the youngest Titanic fanatic aboard: he’s 9, and he dressed up as Captain E.J. Smith for the boat’s launch. “The history just fascinates me,” he said. “The sinking, the building, the aftermath.”
He was traveling with his grandmother, Stephanie Hayes, who lives on Long Island. “A trip like this is such a gift,” she said. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
“I’ve heard about the Titanic ever since I was a little boy,” said William F. Bateman, 87, whose grandfather, Robert James Bateman, perished in the disaster. “We’re having a family get-together on the cruise, celebrating the anniversary and enjoying ourselves.”
He was not concerned about anything going wrong. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “Unless someone gets seasick.”
Too late: the sister cruise from England had to turn back on Wednesday when a passenger took ill. Not to worry: it’s back on course for Saturday night’s ceremonies. God willing.