Great Britain

Great Britain, The first large iron ship to be built as an ocean liner, and the first to have a propeller. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched at Bristol in 1843. She was 98.2 metres (322 ft) in length, with a displacement of 3,270 tons, and had engines that developed 1,500 horsepower which gave her a speed of 12 knots. As originally designed she had six masts and her hull, as a safety measure, was divided into six compartments by watertight bulkheads, the first western passenger ship to adopt a construction long used in Chinese shipbuilding. She was also built with bilge keels and had a chain drive for her propeller. On her maiden voyage to New York in 1845 she carried 60 first-class passengers in single staterooms, as well as a full complement of steerage passengers and 600 tons of cargo. After this crossing she ran ashore on rocks in Dundrum Bay where she lay stranded for eleven months. Her still excellent condition when she was finally salvaged was a convincing tribute to her design and iron construction. Later, she was used as a cargo and passenger ship to Australia, on one voyage carrying more than 600 passengers. Finally, after nearly 40 years in service, she was damaged in a severe gale off Cape Horn and was beached at Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, and used as a coal hulk.

In 1970 she was raised and placed on a pontoon which was towed first to Montevideo and then to Bristol, where she was put in the very dock in which she was built and from which she had been floated 127 years previously. After years of restoration she is now on view to the public.