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
Herbert Haddock White Star and Cunard. He said that he was returning to harbour in New York, and recommended that other ships do the same. Subsequently, the wireless room aboard the "Olympic" operated as a clearing room for radio messages. In the United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the "Titanic", Haddock was interviewed by William Alden Smith on 25 May 1912. Haddock gave his residence as Southampton, and his employment as a "master mariner". Seven weeks after the "Titanic" disaster, Haddock almost ran the "Olympic" aground on rocks near Land's End. The error was attributed to faulty navigation, and Haddock