Campaign launched to keep NomadicA PETITION has been started to save the last White Star Line vessel still afloat.

The ageing SS Nomadic and its sister tender Traffic were built in 1911 for use as tenders for Olympic and Titanic.

The rust-eaten Nomadic is now under threat of being removed from its mooring in Le Havre, France, and ending up on the scrap heap.

But ardent supporters want to see it saved and put to good use.

Thierry Dufournaud, of the French Titanic Society, is leading the campaign.

He said: "Nomadic is the last White Star Line ship survivor, built at the same time as Titanic by Harland and Wolff in Belfast.

"She is the last international witness, a piece of history not just for the French but Southampton too. That's why an international petition has just been created to save Nomadic."

Already more than 300 people have added their names to the petition calling for Nomadic to be saved and restored, but campaigners are hoping for more.

Nomadic had a plush interior and so was given to Titanic to shuttle passengers back and forwards between the ship and land when it docked in Cherbourg after travelling from Southampton on its ill-fated maiden voyage.

Famous passengers included Colonel John Jacob Astor and his wife Madeline, Margaret 'Unsinkable Molly' Brown, and Benjamin Guggenheim.

When Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 and sank in the North Atlantic, more than 500 of the 1,503 people who died were from Southampton.

In 1974 Nomadic was bought and turned into a floating restaurant on the Seine in Paris.

But in the past few years she has fallen into a state of disrepair and all that currently remains is the hull.

The petition is available online at www.petitiononline.com/NOMADIC.