Captain Haddock Hergé thought this was a perfect name for Tintin’s new mariner friend, and so Captain Haddock was born. There was a real 20th-century ship's master bearing this unlikely but appropriate surname: Captain Herbert Haddock had been the skipper of the famous White Star Line's passenger vessel "Olympic". He had also been temporarily at the helm of Olympic's even more famous sister ship "Titanic" before "Titanic" was officially handed over to White Star for her doomed 1912 maiden voyage. Another famous namesake, and a possible inspiration for the Captain's ancestor Sir Francis, was the English admiral Richard Haddock, a veteran of
SS Belgian Captain SS Belgian Captain Belgian Captain was a cargo ship which was built in 1942 as Empire Centaur for the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). In 1943 she was passed to the Belgian Government and renamed "Belgian Captain". Postwar, she was sold into merchant service and renamed Captiane Lambe. In 1960 she was sold to Hong Kong and renamed Ardee, being renamed Alpha Trader in 1964. She served until 1967 when she was scrapped. The ship was built by William Gray & Co. Ltd., West Hartlepool. She was launched on 30 July 1942 and completed in October. The ship was long,