Commercially succesful SS Great Eastern
- Thread starter PMN1
- Start date
The scaling laws weren't well understood. And paddle wheels on a ship that size?
Yes, it was too early, or it was too big.
If even Isambard Kingdom Brunel can't get the engineering right, you KNOW the project's too big a leap.
Interesting what the wiki article says on the building.
£8-10,000 for a suitable dock which was rejected in favour of a slipway with the final cost of launching because of the problems being £170,000.
The SS Himalaya at 340ft looks to have been about the biggest that the market would support at the time and even she was considered too big.
£8-10,000 for a suitable dock which was rejected in favour of a slipway with the final cost of launching because of the problems being £170,000.
The SS Himalaya at 340ft looks to have been about the biggest that the market would support at the time and even she was considered too big.
I have heard of a few experts saying "Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a great engineer... as long as the thing he was designing didn't move"
Obviously this isn't totally true because the Great Britain and the Great western were huge successes.
The Great Eastern was just too big for its time.
She was built in 1854-1858 but her length was only surpassed in 1899 by the RMS Oceanic of the White star line, and her Gross tonnage was only surpassed in 1901 by White star's RMS Celtic!
Maybe if she had been a little smaller and the launch was handled better than i am sure she would have been just as successful as the Great Britain and Great Western.
Watched a Time Team episode on her at the weekend, seems a gold rush that was the reason for building her ended making runs to Australia irrelevant....not sure how accurate that is, Time Team have made wrong statements in the past.