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The Vessel that Started it All...
In the early 19th-century steam technology was really gaining speed, literally. And it was all thanks to one man, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. An engineer that was way ahead of his time, he had pioneered steam engines, building the SS Great Western, the first steamship built for crossing the Atlantic. He had also created the new Great Western Steamship Company, to build and finance the vessels he had planned for the future. And in 1839, one of these new ships would be laid down, and she would be the new sister of the Great Western; the SS Great Britain.
SS Great Britain at launch
The Birth of Steamships
Let's start at the beginning. In 1836, Brunel, his engineering friends, and investors formed the Great Western Steamship Company, and began construction on their first vessel, a wooden paddle steamer named the SS Great Western. A monumental leap forward for her time, incorporating new steam engine technology into her design. She was 235 ft long, had a top-speed of 8.5 knots, and a capacity of 128 First Class passengers, plus 20 servants, and an additional 60 crew members. To a citizen of the 21st century, she seems slow and small, but for the late 1830s she was a huge speed-demon to be marveled at. She set the standard for future Transatlantic steamers, and it was around this time that other companies began to form, namely the Cunard line, White Star Line. Other companies like the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, and the Collins Line were active during this period, but both would have their government contracts revoked and go bankrupt long before the 20th-century, when liners truly hit their golden age.
But back to Brunel. He knew that he would need a running mate for the Great Western, so he began planning another steamship, utilizing two new revolutionary features, an iron hull, and screw propulsion. While the Great Western was a wooden paddle steamer, the Great Britain would be an Iron behemoth, powered by her single screw (propeller.) Construction began and by the 19th of July, 1843, the brand-new SS Great Britain was floated out of dry-dock. And what a spectacle it was. everyone came from far and wide to Bristol to watch the launching, the streets were decorated, and everyone celebrated like it was a public holiday, boys and girls lined the street and a procession, yes a procession was made in honor of the new ship. Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria himself arrived on the royal train, conducted by Brunel, to watch the spectacle. There was an air of excitement as the royal emblem was unfurled, and the Prince and his entourage arrived at noon to find the ship launched, and ready for royal inspection, flags flying from her masts, bunting strung throughout her rigging, depicting nautical flags. The Prince boarded the shining vessel, received refreshments in the lounge, and proceeded on to the banquet hall where local dignitaries had gathered. After a meal onboard the ship, he departed for the naming ceremony.
SS Great Western at sea; SS Great Britain's predecessor
Everything had been going great so far, but that luck would run out at the christening. Clarissa Miles (mother of one of the directors of the Great Western Steamship Company) swung the champagne bottle at the bow of the ship, but the packet steamer Avon had already begun to tow Great Britain out into the harbor, and because of this, the bottle missed, simply plunking into water. Prince Albert quickly found another bottle and shattered it on the ship's hull, but there was another problem, even though she was being towed, Great Britain's mooring lines had not been released, meaning that a tug of war ensued between the Avon and the dock, and the towing line lost; snapping. The delay caused the Prince to leave and miss the end of the event.
So after that utter disast- I mean... hiccup with the christening, SS Great Britain would still be delayed from beginning her unfortunately eventful career. It was planned that she would be moved to the Thames to complete her fitting out, but of course, it wouldn't go to plan. Everything went wrong; the harbor modifications where not completed yet, the ship had been widened from the original plans to accommodate the engines, and her draft was deeper than expected as the builders had installed the engines before launch. *sigh* So, the almost completed Great Britain was stuck in the harbor that it had launched in for over a year, until finally modifications to the locks leading out to the River Avon were completed, and the steamship was set free.
Upon completion, the SS Great Britain was even more of a technological leap that her older sister had been, the first vessel ever to combine an iron hull with screw propulsion. A monster of her day, 322 ft long and a GRT (Gross Registered Tonnage) of over 2,900, more than 100 ft longer, and nearly 900 gross tonnes heavier than any ship previously built at the time. She spanned four decks (including her weather deck,) with a capacity of 360 passengers, 120 crew members, 1,200 tons of cargo, as well as an additional 1,200 tons of coal to drive her massive engine, standing at just over three stories tall.
Not so Smooth Sailing from Here
Embarking on her maiden voyage on the 26th of July, 1845, five whole years late with construction, development, and freeing her from the harbor, she finally embarked on her maiden voyage with 45 passengers, falling far short of her capacity. She mad the crossing in a little under 15 days, and unremarkable time, and made the return crossing in 13.5 days, again, far from the record. She would continue to weather this rocky start to her career, Brunel made modifications to her propeller after her first crossing, but on the next she was snapped up y a storm, losing a mast three out of six propeller blades. She then ran aground on the Massachusetts Shoals, being refloated and repaired in New York, leaving for another crossing with only 28 passengers. It then became evident that she rolled even in calm weather without her sails set, and these problems needed to be addressed.
The company began by replacing the six-bladed propeller wit the original four-bladed one, the third mast was removed, the iron rigging replaced with traditional rigging, and 110 ft long bilge keels were attached to the side of the ship to hopefully decrease rolling. These alterations would prevent her from sailing again for another year. When she returned in 1846, she began to make crossings at acceptable speed, but was again laid up for repairs to one of her chain drums. Only on her third crossing though, she made an unfortunate series of navigational errors that resulted in her running aground hard in Dundrum Bay in Ireland. She remained stuck in the sand of the bay for aver a year, protected by temporary measures. She would be floated free eventually, but at a high cost, that exhausted the Great Western Steamship Company's cash reserves. They could no longer afford to operate her, and she was sold off to Antony Gibbs and Sons for a mere £25,000.
Born Anew
After Gibbs had acquired her, they performed a major refit; 150 ft of the keel was replaced, the bow and stern were strengthened with iron frames, the original engines were taken out and replaced with smaller, lighter, more modern engines, and more iron and wood crossbeams were installed, supporting the engines and reducing vibrations. Six boilers of a smaller size replaced her original, larger three, freeing up space for a new public space, and allowing the cargo capacity to be doubled. After the last modifications to the Great Britain were made; replacing the propeller with a three-bladed one, and the removal of the old bilge keels, replacing them with an external oak keel, and her sail-plan being greatly altered reducing her original five-masted schooner plan with a new four-masted sail-plan, the greatly renewed SS Great Britain was ready to reenter service.
Gibbs set her on a new route, the Britain-Australia run, intending that she would temporarily ferry passengers there as demand had skyrocketed due to the Victorian gold rush, but the route proved to be profitable in the long term, so Gibbs decided to (I know it sounds crazy) do yet another refit. They increased her passenger capacity by 370, and reduced her sail-plan again to a simple three-masted square-rigged sail-plan that you could find on any old vessel at the time, and fitted her with a different propeller; this time removable. After this refit, she served on the Australia run uninterrupted for 3-decades (save for two brief stints as a troopship in the Crimean war and Indian revolt respectively) without anything going wrong! That must be some kind of record for her. Oh, wait, actually no! only a decade in she wrecked in Cape Verde!! Honestly, who wasn't expecting something like this to happen? Anyway, on the night of the 25th/26th of November, 1872, nothing actually went wrong with the vessel, but her captain. Or rather, the absence of her captain, because at some point during the night he disappeared from the ship and was never seen again. Hmmm. Wonder what happened to him.
I couldn't find a picture with a high enough resolution of her with a four or three-masted sail-plan, so here's a dramatic stern shot! You're welcome :)
A Steamer No Longer
In 1882 Great Britain was converted into a sail-only vessel and began hauling coal, but her owners saw the writing on the wall, the old lady's time was almost up. And sure enough, her bad luck would catch up to her in 1886. After loading up with coal, she left Whales on the 8th of February, bound for the Panama, but a fire broke out on board and she was found in the Falkland Islands, wrecked on a sandbar. Damaged beyond cost-effective repair, the was sold off and refloated to be used as a coal bunker, effectively a storage hulk. She remained in this sorry state until 1937 when she was no longer of use.
She was towed three and a half miles away to Sparrow Cove, and the once grand Great Britain was Scuttled and abandoned. This was a new low for the ship, left to rot far from home. But no one would have guessed that perhaps her greatest hour still lay ahead of her, as she wouldn't stay sunk forever...
Lost and Found
In 1970 began the great SS Great Britain Project, funded by charitable donations and led by Richard Goold-Adams. Naval architect Ewan Corlett conducted a study of the ship and reported that it was possible to refloat the now rotten shell that once was the SS Great Britain, and that was all the project needed to hear. A German tug was dispatched to the scene, accompanied by a submersible pontoon. The SS Great Britain was hoisted up onto the pontoon, and the entourage sailed to Port Stanley, and prepared the now 131-year old vessel for her first voyage across the Atlantic in 84 years. Code named 'Voyage 47,' SS Great Britain departed Port Stanley on the 24th of April, making a pit-stop in the Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, for final inspection and checks before they made for the open Atlantic. Voyage 47 proceeded without indecent, and the Great Britain completed her roughly 8,000 mile (13,000 km) journey back to Bristol on the 21st of July, 1970.
Set in her berth at the Great Western Dockyard, restoration immediately began, restoring her to her former glory, in the state she was in at the start of her career all the way back in the mid-1800s. One of the most pressing issues was the humidity of the dock, which was slowly corroding the hull away. In order to fix this, an airtight seal of glass plating was installed over the drydock, meeting the hull were the waterline would have and sealing the lower hull in a space that could be climate controlled. Her luxurious spaces, especially her lavish dining hall, were reinstalled, and finally she was ready to reenter service, not as a passenger liner, but as a museum of the the 1840s for her 150,000 visitors per year to see.
SS Great Britain today
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