This ship, larger than any previously built, was a forerunner of today's ocean liners. Brunel got the idea for it in , year of the Great Exhibition in London. Account of how money was raised and the hazardous task of building and launching the ship, which cost many lives.
Construction, on the Thames, took from to Highlights, of Brunel's career: at 20 he was construction supervisor for the Thames Tunnel, first tunnel dug under a river since the Babylonians years earlier. This pioneering design became known as Renkioi hospital. It took Brunel only six days to complete and was considered a great success for its attention hygiene and sanitation for a large number of occupants.
This led to the construction of the SS Great Western in , the first steamship purpose-built for crossing the Atlantic. She was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. She was used regularly for transatlantic passenger travel between and Brunel went on to design the SS Great Britain , regarded as the first modern steamship when launched in She was the largest ship of her time, built of metal, powered by an engine and driven by propeller rather than paddle wheel.
Today, she has been fully restored and is on display in Bristol as a popular tourist attraction. Discover more about the SS Great Britain on their website. It was an ambitious and groundbreaking feat of engineering, and the largest ship of its time.
Sadly, Brunel, a heavy smoker, suffered a stroke just before Great Eastern 's ill-fated maiden voyage in , in which she was damaged by an explosion. Brunel died 10 days later, aged 53, leaving a pioneering legacy behind him. Find out more about the Great Eastern. See more in our Maritime London gallery. On the 5th September , Brunel was onboard the SS Great Eastern, one of his most notable creations and the largest ship ever built in its time.
As the ship tested its engines before setting sail for New York, Brunel had a stroke on deck. He returned to his home at 18 Duke Street, London where he died on 15 September , aged fifty-three.
Memorials were quickly made, including a plaque at each end of the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash which was opened just a few months before his death. This plaque can still be seen on the bridge today. Plan and elevation of the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Lithograph of the Great Western, SS Great Britain in full sail. Visit Us. Brunel's first ship became the first truly viable package steamer, completing 67 crossings over the next eight years.
More importantly, the experience of building the Great Western had given Brunel other ideas. Other crucial innovations were incorporated. The Great Britain had a double hull made of iron rather than wood and was propelled by screw propeller rather than paddles. These innovations evolved over a two year period, , during which Brunel advised the Admiralty on designs for the world's first screw-propelled naval steamship, the Rattler.
His methodology was as important a contribution to engineering as his results. She was launched on 19 July and, after a long and varied life, was brought home to Bristol where she remains today. Brunel's final shipping experiment, the Great Eastern , is variously described as his greatest failure, his most far-sighted vision and the project which killed him. Too large to be propelled by a single screw, the Great Eastern was powered both by screw propulsion and paddles.
When the time came to launch her, in November , nothing of a comparable weight had ever been moved across land by man. We cannot know whether Brunel's supporters in Bristol would have stuck with him through this last, most ambitious scheme, for the Great Western Steamship Company had been bankrupted by a disaster involving the Great Britain in
0コメント