A Swiss-U.S. partnership plans to build a $500 million, full-size replica of the Titanic - packing it full of celebrities and retracing it's maiden voyage on the tragedy's 90th anniversary, April 15, 2002.

This time, the Titanic will make it to New York, the developers promise - already replicating the first owners' boasts of the original "unsinkable" ship. And in any case, this Titanic will have enough lifeboats, the developers add. "It cannot sink," said Walter Navratil, president of the project's Swiss-based development company, White Star Line Ltd., named after the original Titanic's long-defunct ownership company.

Navratil insisted his new, oil-fueled steamer will safely complete a Southampton, England-to-New York round-trip maiden voyage, then continue life as a pleasure cruiser. "It will look the same, buy it will be adapted to modern regulations," he said by phone yesterday from his home in Austria.

The plan was fueled by "Titanic" movie mania both here and abroad. "We thought now would be the right moment, because the whole world is keen on "Titanic," said Annette Voelcker, spokeswoman for G&E Business Consulting and Trust, the Swiss-based hotel developer that is the project's chief shareholder. "We will have all the period decor. It will be like a voyage back in time," Voelcker said. "Everyone has now watched the movie and read the books. People are now ready to touch the Titanic.

"It will have modern equipment to detect icebergs," she added. The replica Titanic would cost $400 million to $500 million, the developers said. That's a far cry from the original's $10 million cost in 1912 - although it's a much closer cry to the Titanic's movie-replica price tag of more then $100 million. Funding will be no problem, boasts Navratil. "All investors want two things: They want to have an exciting project, and they want to have a profit at the end of the day," he said. "I know we can provide them both."

A spokeswoman for the project's U.S. partner, Titanic Development Corporation, based in Las Vegas, says some investors are already lined up, but many more will be needed. The partners are hoping to meet in the next few weeks with the Titanic's original Irish shipbuilding firm - in an attempt to hire it as shipbuilder for the 882-foot craft. A spokeswoman for the Belfast based shipbuilders, Harland and Wolff, could not say yesterday whether talks are ongoing. He did say his company still holds the original design plans for the Titanic. The plans are publicly available, including on the internet - at $20 and up per document - to everyone from hobbyists to movie makers.

Although the company's shipbuilding is limited to oil rigs and drill ships, Harland and Wolff is currently helping another Northern Ireland company design a one-sixth scale Titanic for use as a floating conference center, said spokesman Peter Harbinson. Only the rich and famous will be able to afford even the cheapest maiden-voyage berth on the new Titanic.

Tickets will cost from $10,000 to $100,000, Voelcker said. "It will be for people who are rich and crazy about the Titanic," she said. On it's maiden voyage, the new Titanic will pause in the North Atlantic 560 miles off Newfoundland - the site where 1,500 passengers died in the first ship's sinking on April 15, 1912.

"I think we will take a few minutes to think of the original disaster," Voelcker said. The developers said they copyrighted the name "R.M.S. Titanic" with the Institute for Intellectual Property in Switzerland last week.

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