Awesome ships

[F-14 Ace]

As some of you may know, I've always been interested in old ships, particularly the Titanic.  However, there are plenty of other awesome ships out there that have contributed to history and deserve to be discussed, so that is what this topic is for.

The S.S. Great Eastern
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Why it was awesome: Built in 1858 and designed by legendary engineer Isambard Brunel, this was what I consider to be the first truly great ocean liner.  The Great Eastern was a ship that was way ahead of her time.  She was 692 feet in length and weighed over 32,000 tons, making her six times larger than anything else that existed at the time.  The ship had a metal hull and had six masts, five funnels, two paddle wheels and a propeller.  This was in an era where steamships were still in their infancy and most ships were made of wood.  The Great Eastern was truly a spectacular feat of engineering.  In addition to all her other features, the ship also had a double bottom hull and  a complex system of watertight compartments.  

Sadly, despite being a technological wonder, she ultimately proved to be too far ahead of her time.  She was so large and so technologically complex that even minor repairs were difficult, if not impossible outside of her home port.  In addition, the ship was plagued with several disasters throughout her career.  

According to legend, two workers were accidentally sealed inside the ship's double bottom hull during construction.  Before the Great Eastern even made her first voyage, her builder, Isambard Brunel suffered a stroke and later died.

During the ship's maiden voyage, a boiler explosion killed several crew members and badly damaged the ship.

During a later voyage, she was crippled during a storm when both of her paddle wheels were destroyed by large waves and the ship's rudder broke.

In 1860, the ship's captain was killed in a freak accident.

The Great Easters's most well-known accident occurred in 1862 when the ship ran aground on a rock while approaching New York.  The collision tore a 9 foot wide, 85 foot long gash in her hull.  Fortunately, only the outer hull was breached and the inner hull prevented the ship from flooding.  However, the damage rendered the ship unseaworthy. Lengthy and expensive temporary repairs had to be made before the ship could return to port for permanent repairs.  

In addition to the Great Eastern's technological innovations, her other great contribution to history came when the ship served as a cable laying vessel.  She ran the first transatlantic telegraph cables from Europe to North America, enabling telegraph messages to be sent anywhere in the world.

After a failed attempt to convert the Great Eastern back into a passenger ship, she was eventually used as a floating billboard and a showboat before ultimately being scrapped in 1889.

The ship proved to be a commercial failure.  She was designed to carry 4,000 people but carried no more than a few hundred during her career.  The ship was built to carry passengers from Europe to the Far East, but there was not enough demand for such a large ship.  Instead the was assigned to the Atlantic passenger rout.  When the American Civil War broke out, few people traveled to the US, so again, there were not enough paying passengers for the ship to be profitable.

The myth that workers were sealed inside the Titanic's hull during construction actually originated with the Great Eastern.  Supposedly, when the Great Eastern was being scrapped, the remains of the trapped workers were actually found when the hull was broken up.  On to the next ship.

The HMS Warrior
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...orjune20092.jpg

Why it was awesome:  The French warship Gloire is considered to be the first ironclad, but it was just a wooden hull with metal plates attached.  The HMS Warrior was the first ship to have a completely metal hull.  Built in 1859, around the same time as the Great Eastern, the Warrior was an armored frigate built to counter the aforementioned Gloire.  The never actually saw combat though.  The Warrior was a hybrid sailing ship/steam ship, with two smokestacks and three masts and a screw propeller.  While the ship was state-of-the-art when first built, rapid advancements in naval engineering quickly rendered her obsolete.  The Warrior never saw combat and spent most of her career sitting at anchor.  Around the turn of the 20th century, the ship was gutted out and used as a storage hulk.  She remained this way until she was restored to original condition in the 1970s and 80s.  Today the ship still exists as a museum and is docked at Portsmouth.  


Later on I want to post about the the USS Olympia.  Anyone else have any awesome historical ships they'd like to discuss?

[Kor]

I wish I did.  Very interesting post.  I do look forward to the next ones you'll do.  Thanks for posting this, very interesting reading.

[F-14 Ace]

The USS Olympia
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...S_Olympia_2.jpg

Built in 1892, the cruiser USS Olympia is a shining example of late 19th century ship building technology.  She's also a vital part of American history.  She was the flagship of  Commodore George Dewey's fleet during the Battle of Manila Bay and she played a key role in America's emergence as a world superpower.  During the Spanish-American War, the Olympia easily outclassed her Spanish counterparts both in firepower and technology.  The Olympia served with the US Navy until the end of the first World War.  During the 1950s, the Olympia was preserved a s a museum ship.  Today, along with the Russian cruiser Aurora, the Greek cruiser Georgios Averof, and the Japanese battleship Mikasa, she is one of the last pre-Dreadnaught warships in existence and the and she's the last surviving ship from the Spanish-American War.

Unfortunately, the Olympia currently faces an uncertain future.  The Independence Seaport Museum, which currently owns the Olympia, no longer has the funds to maintain the ship.  The Olympia has fallen into a state of disrepair and all attempts to find a new owner have thus far failed.  There have been plans to either scrap the historic ship or to sink her as an artificial reef.  Given the Olympia's historical significance, either of those would be a complete travesty.  


The RMS Olympic
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...ork_cropped.jpg

The lead ship of the Olympic class ocean liners, and more importantly, the near-identical sister ship of the Titanic, the Olympic is largely overshadowed by her ill-fated sister.  Still, the Olympic deserves to be remembered.  Built in 1908 and completing her first voyage in 1911, the Olympic was state-of-the-art for her time.  

While the Olympic was very similar to the Titanic, there were some slight differences.  The Olympic has two promenade decks on A-deck and B-deck while the Titanic only had a promenade deck on A-deck.  The space where the B-deck promenade would have been on the Titanic was instead used to enlarge the B-deck cabins.  The Olympic also lacked a Parisian cafe on B-deck that the Titanic featured, due to the presence of the B-deck promenade.  After the loss of the Titanic, the Olympic underwent a refit to make improvements to her safety features.  During this time, her B-deck promenade was removed to enlarge the B-deck cabins and the aforementioned Parisian face was added.

During WWI, the Olympic survived a torpedo attack and managed to ram and sink the U-boat that attacked her, earning the distinction of being the only civilian ship in history to score a kill on an enemy submarine.  Later, the Olympic was used as a troop ship, carrying thousands of allied troops to Europe and earning the nickname "Old Reliable".  

After the war, the Olympic returned to regular passenger service and continued her career until 1935 when she was finally scrapped.  

During her career, the Olympic was involved in several accidents.  On September 20, 1911, the Olympic collided with he HMS Hawke.  There were no serious but the Olympic suffered serious damage.  Her repairs delayed the maiden voyage of the Titanic, which was still under construction at the time.  

During the first World War, the Olympic was involved in the rescue of the crew of the battleship HMS Audacious.

In 1934, the Olympic collided with the Nantucket Lightship, resulting in seven fatalities.

In 1935, after the White Star Line merged with the Cunard Line, the Olympic was finally broken up for scrap.  Part of the ship's Grand Staircase, as well as many other lavish fittings were used in the construction of the White Swan Hotel in  Alnwick, England, where they can still be seen today.  

Because the Olympic had a much longer career than the Titanic, many more photographs and video recordings exist of the ship. In fact, many historic photos that appear in Titanic exhibits are actually from the Olympic.