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 was under strict observation for his next few voyages. Haddock was in command of "Olympic" in 1914 during her attempt to assist HMS "Audacious" after she had collided with a German mine. "Olympic" was subsequently laid up until being converted to a troopship at the outbreak of World War I. Haddock was redeployed to command a dummy fleet of wooden dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, and was stationed in Belfast. In 1915, Harold Sanderson, head of International Mercantile Marine, tried to reassign Haddock to captain "Britannic" when she was converted to a hospital ship. However, the Admiralty refused to release Haddock