On this date in 1837 Brunel's steamship, the Great Western, was launched at Bristol. Here are 10 things you might not know:
SS Great Western was a wooden-hulled paddle-wheel steamship with four masts. The Great Western displaced 1,320 tons, was 212 feet (65 metres) long, and carried 148 passengers. Its average speed without sails was 9 knots.
She was built in the shipyard of William Patterson & Son in Bristol, beginning in June 1836.
She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel as the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic. Brunel had set out to create a route from London to New York. Passengers would be able to travel to Bristol on his railway, and then on to New York on his ship.
She was the largest passenger ship in the world from 1837 to 1839, when the SS British Queen went into service.
There was a tragedy during the launch. A shipwright was killed when a large bulk of timber fell on him, fracturing his Skull.
The Great Western was launched without any engines. Once launched, the ship made its way to London under sail and the engines were fitted there.
Her maiden voyage wasn’t until 31 March 1838. Great Western sailed for Avonmouth, near Bristol, to New York. Before reaching Avonmouth, however, a Fire broke out in the engine room, during which Brunel was injured in a fall and had to be put ashore at Canvey Island. The fire was extinguished, and the damage to the ship was minimal, but more than 50 passengers cancelled their bookings for the voyage because of it. When Great Western finally departed Avonmouth, there were only seven passengers aboard.
She arrived in New York City 15 days later (half the time that sailing ships usually took).
When the original owners went out of business Great Western was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and later served as a troop transport vessel in the Crimean War.
In August 1856 she was sold for scrapping and was broken up at Castles' Yard, Millbank on the Thames.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
No comments:
Post a Comment