I had a "steampunk" idea

[Sarongman]

Historically significant sailing ships have been, as best we can know, faithfully replicated. Ships such as the Mayflower, the Gilt Dragon and the Endeavour and an eccentric multi millionaire here wants to build a replica of the Titanic but I'd love to see someone take in hand the replication of Brunel's Great Eastern. What a gem she would be on the water!

[crfriend]

I'd love to see someone take in hand the replication of Brunel's Great Eastern. What a gem she would be on the water!

Oh, yes! I'd like to see that for many a reason. Talk about a vessel that changed the course of the world!

[Kirbstone]

Re: the Great Eastern. She was far from a gem when she was built. Her size was a half-century ahead of time and the power then available plus the means of delivering it (paddle wheels) was grossly inadequate. She rolled like a drunkard at sea and was soon withdrawn from passenger use, for which she had been built.
Cable laying duties made some practical use of her afterwards. I don't think anyone would ever seriously consider building another.

A replica Titanic with modern systems would however be very popular indeed and bring a handsome return on the investment.

T.

[crfriend]

Re: the Great Eastern. [...] Her size was a half-century ahead of time and the power then available plus the means of delivering it (paddle wheels) was grossly inadequate. [...]

In addition to the paddlewheels, she also had a screw and carried sails. For the time, she was a behemoth, and like so many ground-breaking and, to use the modern term, "envelope-pushing" designs had more than her share of teething problems.

Cable laying duties made some practical use of her afterwards.

It was in this capacity that she shone brilliantly. She laid the first successful trans-Atlantic telegraph cable in 1866, following losing a cable in 1865, and upon the completion of the 1866 one went off, found the bitter end of the 1865 one, grappled it, spliced in, and returned to land with a second functioning cable. Her unique propulsion was partly responsible for these feats as she could manouevre very precisely using the combination of paddle-wheel and screw. I do not know if she ever sailed other than in tests.

I don't think anyone would ever seriously consider building another.

Probably not, but one can dream, can't one.

A replica Titanic with modern systems would however be very popular indeed and bring a handsome return on the investment.

There's work afoot on that one as this is being written. However, dream not of her being built in Belfast; this one'll likely get done in China. Finally, it's worth mentioning that for her time, Titanic was well kitted out indeed.

On a tangentially-related topic, back in the days when I worked for a large engineering company I got to name the four -- FOUR! Think of it! -- computers that were attached to the Internet. In the spirit of engineering and engineers, I named them Brunel, Eads, Eiffel, and Roebling. Practically nobody in the company knew all those names and what made them famous. Sad.

[Sarongman]

Going off at a tangent, as I am wont to do. To me the great piece of brilliance with that transatlantic cable was the mirror system at the ends which, since there was such a current drop over that distace, and not a snowflake's chance in hell of a repeater station, meant the signal was too weak to trip the standard morse reciever however some bright spark (pun intended) devised finely balanced mirrors with an electromagnetic system, that sent a light either right or left for dot or dash--otherwise the cable would have been a failure.
Regarding the Titanic, if the builders had used better rivets she might have survived or at the least stayed afloat till daylight and a chance of rescue. Penny pinching, in that case, amounted to murder.

[Kirbstone]

As with the new Titanic II, most Irish souvenirs you pick up in the little shops in Killarney or Galway or wherever have 'Made in China' on the bottom !

The Great Eastern was uniquely suited to cable laying not only because of her station-keeping ability, but her vast size could actually carry the mighty cable itself as no other ship of that time could.
The very first Transatlantic cable came ashore at our end at Knightstown, Valentia Is. Co. Kerry, just a stone's throw from my 52nd Parallel bolthole. Subsequent cables came ashore in Ballinskelligs itself, and the local pub is called 'Cable O'Leary's'.

The mirrors &c. technology story is fascinating, Sarongman. I hadn't heard about that.

T.

[crfriend]

The Great Eastern was uniquely suited to cable laying not only because of her station-keeping ability, but her vast size could actually carry the mighty cable itself as no other ship of that time could.

That, of course, was implicit in my commentary.

The mirrors &c. technology story is fascinating, Sarongman. I hadn't heard about that.

An interesting place to spend an evening perusing such matters is The Atlantic Cable Museum which abounds with interesting things regarding all aspects of the venture. Kirbstone will especially like this piece as it is geographically relevant to him.

Some of the more esoteric pieces of technology in use for the time were duplexers which allowed signals to be sent both ways along the cable and devices used to "clean up" the signal emitted from the ends of the long copper wire. The reflecting galvanometer was interesting as it was one of the coarser devices that allowed the cables to actually come into practical commercial use before it would otherwise have been commercially feasible. Also on-site are technical descriptions of the phenomena that kept the cables from operating as fast as they should have had they been suspended in air (or functioned even when installed in the large tanks in Great Eastern and other cable-ships). I've already spent more time on that site than lots of other places -- good stuff.