I say the Olympic is lucky because it was the only one of the three identical sisters to make it to retirement. The Britannic, like the Titanic, was sunk but this time the circumstances were different as was the death toll.
She was, at that time, the largest ship in the world (she held that record until the Titanic came along and then reclaimed it after the Titanic sank, and then lost it again when a German ship, Imperator, was completed in 1913.), bigger than the Cunard Sisters, the Lusitania and the Mauretania.
The White Star Line had decided to build three mammoth liners to go into service on the North Atlantic route. The Olympic was the first. All three would be identical except for a few minor details. The main differences between the Olympic and Titanic were:
1. The Promenade deck on the Olympic was totally open, whereas on the Titanic sections of this were enclosed to provide private promenades for a rich few.
2. On the Titanic there was a special section of B deck suites that were extra luxurious. These were the ones that had the private promenades and were strictly first class. The Olympic did not have these special suites.
The Olympic had a relatively uneventful life providing steady, strong service for the White Star Line, except for a few incidents.
On the 20th of September 1911, the Olympic departed Southampton with Captain E. J. Smith as master. Shortly after noon she rounded the Bramble Bank at the normal harbour speed of 19 knots when she encountered the 7,350 ton British Cruiser Hawke. The two ships turned as to proceed down the Spithead Channel, and did so for a short distance. Sources say the two ships were to have been around 100 - 300 feet apart when suddenly the Hawke seemed to veer towards the larger ship. A collision was unavoidable and the bow of the Hawke slammed into the starboard side of the Olympic about 80 feet from the stern. The bow of the Hawke was badly damaged and two gashes were left in the Olympic - one above and one below the water line. No loss of life resulted and the two ships made their way back to port, under their own power. Work on the Titanic was stopped and the Olympic was repaired before continuing its service.
The Olympic made its way through World War I as a troop carrier. Luckily, it was never badly damaged by German torpedos and safely made it through the war. After the war she got the nick name of "The Grand Old Lady of the North Atlantic".
After the Titanic disaster, the Olympic was upgraded to become, what the White Star hoped, a safer ship. The White Star Line had become obsessed with safety.
The Olympic continued its service until she was scrapped in 1935. She had been the largest ship in the world and the largest British ship in the world until the Queen Mary and the only ship of the White Star Triad to finish a peace time voyage. Her interiors were sold off and some can be found in various mansions and pubs around the English country side.
Her safety features were to be outstanding. She had large lifeboat davits that could hold more than one lifeboat, and her structure had been updated.
In November 21, 1916, the Britannic was on a routine hospital trip from Salonika, when she was sunk in the Kea Channel in the Aegean. She sank in about 55 minutes, after being hit by a torpedo, or a mine. The damage of the explosion was roughly the size of the Titanic's and as Jacques Cousteau found out in 1976 after finding the wreck, the keel and sections of the hull were blown cleanly away for 60 - 70 feet!
Out of the 1,100 on board only 30 died with 45 injured. Most of the deaths reportedly occurred when the ship was still underway and some of the port side lifeboats had been launched prematurely and had been sucked into the still turning screws!