[DL] Re: Great Eastern & Ships

[Michael Robert Blair <pellinoire@yahoo.com>]

There was a rather nice 1889 variant that had the
Great Eastern bought and converted by the RN as a
carrier for aerial gunboats.

She was supposed to be haunted, apparently a workman
and a boy were riveted up (accidentally I hope) into
the double bottom.

Another Brunel ship, the Great Britain is preserved in
the Bristol dock where she was built after spending a
century or so rusting in the Falklands.

The Falklands is an interesting place, a lot of ships
that tried and failed to go round Cape Horn limped to
the Falklands are were hulked there - so the Falklands
are a gold mine for marine archaeologists. PCs trying
to sail to Califionia might end up there.

While on ships there was a whaling fleet trapped in
the Arctic ice in about 1877, you could add a certain
white whale if the PCs got Shanghaied aboard a whaler.

Britain led the world in naval architecture. Part of
the reason was the impetus given by the need for
blockade runners in the ACW for very fast light ships
- which meant iron hulls and cutting edge engines and
boilers.

Useful books are Conway's 'History of the Ship' -
especially the 'Steam, Steel and Shellfire' volume and
David Brown's history of Royal naval architecture, the
volume here is 'From Warrior to Dreadnought'.


Michael

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