Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
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The Ill-Fated Ship!
On January 31, 1858, at the Millwall shipyard "J. Scott Russell & Co." the largest ship in the world at the time was launched:
It is the steamer "Great Eastern", which is additionally equipped with masts and sails.
With a size of 18,915 gross register tons, the length of the ship is 211 m, width 25.3 m, height 17.7 m, draft 6.1 m unloaded and 9.1 m loaded, weight (mass, displacement) around 32,000 t (loaded) and unloaded 17,682 t (18,000 tons).
There had already been an attempt to launch the ship on November 3 of the previous year, but it had failed.
On this day, the ship was initially - by mistake - christened "Leviathan" with water instead of champagne and was then to be launched.
Alone: It was just too heavy and only moved about a meter!
Attempts by the shipyard workers to set the giant ship in motion with a chain hoist ended in disaster!
A chain broke, killing a worker!
The cost of the unsuccessful launch was then the staggering sum of £120,000, an amount for which a normal sized sailor could have been built.
The next picture shows valuable workers, who, after the failed launching attempt, shoot up (=roll up) the heavy chains with gangspills (hand-operated winches)..:
In general, the construction of the giant ship was accompanied by a number of accidents, a major fire and several deaths, which the superstitious shipyard workers attributed to the cursed biblical sea monster Leviathan...:
So the owner and shipyard management decide to give the ship a new - more harmless - name: "Great Eastern"!
On January 31, 1858, a new launch attempt is made!
They waited for the exact moment when the high tide hit and also brought in huge hydraulic pumps, which are now flooding the building dock so that the giant floats up and finally slides into its element...:
The further history of the ship is also a disaster!
Her reputation as an unfortunate ship has spread nationwide, only 35 paying passengers book the maiden voyage!
The "Great Eastern" had room for about 4,000 passengers...
...and had such a large loading capacity for coal (around 15,000 t) that it would have been possible to circumnavigate the world with it. ..:
She was 50 years ahead of her time.
However, since there was no need for these passenger capacities at the time, none of their trips were profitable.
In addition, accidents repeatedly affected the reputation of the ship: on the maiden voyage in September 1859, a steam boiler exploded, killing several people.
In January 1860 the captain, William Harrison died...
...when he capsized and drowned in a storm with a dinghy from the "Great Eastern" in the port of Southampton.
In September 1861, a wave tore off both paddle wheels. On August 27, 1862, the ship struck an uncharted reef off Long Island, New York.
The crack in the ship's outer skin was almost 30 meters long. Thanks to the double wall, the Great Eastern was able to enter New York Harbor under its own steam. In 1867, in a storm, a steam windlass burst and four sailors were impaled.
Oh yes: the client of the ship, Isambard Kingdom Brunel...
...suffered a stroke the day before the ship's maiden voyage, from which he never recovered. He died a few days later at the age of 53.
However, the shipwreck went down in history through a different episode: the laying of the first functional transatlantic cable in 1866...:
It is largely unknown that the most prominent passenger who ever rode the "Great Eastern", the French writer Jules Verne...
...was inspired by the giant ship for his novel "Une ville flottante" (= "A floating city")...:
In 1888, after a short interlude, the uneconomical giant ship was used as a floating exhibition and library in Ireland...
...beached near Liverpol and scrapped...:
The skeletons of two workers are said to have been found in the space between the outer and inner fuselage shell, which were probably accidentally locked there by their colleagues during construction...
However, an original part of the unfortunate ship is still in use today:
Its mast was converted into a flagpole - and it still stands in front of the "Liverpool FC" stadium on Anfield Road...
On January 31, 1858, at the Millwall shipyard "J. Scott Russell & Co." the largest ship in the world at the time was launched:
It is the steamer "Great Eastern", which is additionally equipped with masts and sails.
With a size of 18,915 gross register tons, the length of the ship is 211 m, width 25.3 m, height 17.7 m, draft 6.1 m unloaded and 9.1 m loaded, weight (mass, displacement) around 32,000 t (loaded) and unloaded 17,682 t (18,000 tons).
There had already been an attempt to launch the ship on November 3 of the previous year, but it had failed.
On this day, the ship was initially - by mistake - christened "Leviathan" with water instead of champagne and was then to be launched.
Alone: It was just too heavy and only moved about a meter!
Attempts by the shipyard workers to set the giant ship in motion with a chain hoist ended in disaster!
A chain broke, killing a worker!
The cost of the unsuccessful launch was then the staggering sum of £120,000, an amount for which a normal sized sailor could have been built.
The next picture shows valuable workers, who, after the failed launching attempt, shoot up (=roll up) the heavy chains with gangspills (hand-operated winches)..:
In general, the construction of the giant ship was accompanied by a number of accidents, a major fire and several deaths, which the superstitious shipyard workers attributed to the cursed biblical sea monster Leviathan...:
So the owner and shipyard management decide to give the ship a new - more harmless - name: "Great Eastern"!
On January 31, 1858, a new launch attempt is made!
They waited for the exact moment when the high tide hit and also brought in huge hydraulic pumps, which are now flooding the building dock so that the giant floats up and finally slides into its element...:
The further history of the ship is also a disaster!
Her reputation as an unfortunate ship has spread nationwide, only 35 paying passengers book the maiden voyage!
The "Great Eastern" had room for about 4,000 passengers...
...and had such a large loading capacity for coal (around 15,000 t) that it would have been possible to circumnavigate the world with it. ..:
She was 50 years ahead of her time.
However, since there was no need for these passenger capacities at the time, none of their trips were profitable.
In addition, accidents repeatedly affected the reputation of the ship: on the maiden voyage in September 1859, a steam boiler exploded, killing several people.
In January 1860 the captain, William Harrison died...
...when he capsized and drowned in a storm with a dinghy from the "Great Eastern" in the port of Southampton.
In September 1861, a wave tore off both paddle wheels. On August 27, 1862, the ship struck an uncharted reef off Long Island, New York.
The crack in the ship's outer skin was almost 30 meters long. Thanks to the double wall, the Great Eastern was able to enter New York Harbor under its own steam. In 1867, in a storm, a steam windlass burst and four sailors were impaled.
Oh yes: the client of the ship, Isambard Kingdom Brunel...
...suffered a stroke the day before the ship's maiden voyage, from which he never recovered. He died a few days later at the age of 53.
However, the shipwreck went down in history through a different episode: the laying of the first functional transatlantic cable in 1866...:
It is largely unknown that the most prominent passenger who ever rode the "Great Eastern", the French writer Jules Verne...
...was inspired by the giant ship for his novel "Une ville flottante" (= "A floating city")...:
In 1888, after a short interlude, the uneconomical giant ship was used as a floating exhibition and library in Ireland...
...beached near Liverpol and scrapped...:
The skeletons of two workers are said to have been found in the space between the outer and inner fuselage shell, which were probably accidentally locked there by their colleagues during construction...
However, an original part of the unfortunate ship is still in use today:
Its mast was converted into a flagpole - and it still stands in front of the "Liverpool FC" stadium on Anfield Road...
Brunel was one of the great chancers of the 19th Century. There is still a lot of his work to be seen throughout Britain, but if one delves into his history, one finds that a number of his major engineering works were not of his provenance. He was, however, a great self-publicist from a very well-to-do background.
