Trip Around the SS Great Britain and the Matthew.

[Big Orange]

I was thinking of going to the Banksy Exihibition with my dad and look at Banksy's eccentric art:



Only trouble was there were too many fucking people:

[Big Orange]

So I decided to go round Bristol's docks instead to see the Matthew and the museam built around the SS Great Britain. Here is a good view of the Matthew, which is a replica of the real deal that was captained by Giovanni Caboto back in 1497:

[Big Orange]

The main entrance to the SS Great Britain:



This weirdo is supposed to be Isambard Kingdom Brunel:






^The SS Great Briton is behind him.

[Big Orange]

More SS Great Britain exterior porn:

[Big Orange]

Some of the interesting side details to this open air museum:


An Victorian lamp post and the former drydock support houses converted into a gift shop and cafe.


The prow. The water is really a thin film over thick glass that has the lower hull of the SS Great Britain and drydock sealed off.


Looking into the drydock (make out the air circulation machinery and gantry).


Entrance to the big machine parts shack converted into the interior museum.


A dedication plaque.

[Thanas]

Great pictures. Does the Matthew also do trips around Europe?

[Raesene]

Good pictures ! Another ship museum to visit...

Is S.S. Great Britain now owned by the Royal Navy ? I think that's a White Ensign she's flying.

[Frank Hipper]

MOAR MATTHEW, NOW.

Carracks are very near and dear to my heart, y'see, and Matthew's the best one out there, even if it's tiny.
It blows all the Santa Maria re-creations away, big-time.

A general FYI:
"Replica" is a misnomer for nearly every one of these modern sailing ships called "replica" excepting HMS Bounty and Endeavour; no one has a clue as to the actual appearance of most of those 15th-17th century ships, and the term "replica" is quite specific in meaning.

[Thanas]

^And the Ubena von Bremen, of course.

[Big Orange]

More Matthew porn as requested, though from other sources:



Link



Link

The people behind this quasi-accurate recreation of the Matthew have got their own website with the preliminary info on the Matthew project (which has gone on for well over a decade now).

[Big Orange]

Now the weirdes and best bit of the SS Great Britain tour, the bowls of the dry dock:


The ship is propped up by poles and the atmosphere is maintained by elaborate ventilation machinery.




The core of the ventilation network keeping the air still and muggy.


Close up of the partially corroded hull.


The vent mouths.




More long shots of the lower hull.



The really cool rudder and propeller.


A dramatic shot up through the glass to the prow.


The dry dock gate.

[Frank Hipper]

^And the Ubena von Bremen, of course.

I've read she's very wet in all but very calm conditions.
For me, a tour of Europe would consist of hitting up as much floating and preserved tonnage as I could manage; that coming to pass is a case of shitting in one hand and wishing in the other to see which fills up first, though.

Thanks for the Matthew videos, BO....I'm on dial-up but shall persevere; they're nice and short.

Also thank you for the Great Britain photogs, she's a miraculous survivor, not to mention an engineering masterpiece that lives up to the claim "The world changed here." .
Modern water tank model tests of her propellor revealed it be as efficient at moving water as modern propellors, so said the guy on camera running the test.

[Big Orange]

The tour of the SS Great Britain above decks:

[Thanas]

^And the Ubena von Bremen, of course.

I've read she's very wet in all but very calm conditions.

Hmm. This is surprising considering that ships of her type sailed all the way to Norway/Spain and often carried such non water-friendly cargo like silk/spices.

Might I trouble you for your source?

[Big Orange]

Now we'll go below decks:



A communal hallway, with First Class cabins lining it.


First Class seating area.


Cramped ass cabin, but still First Class.



First Class dining (a little creepy if you ask me).


The best photo I could get of the hollowed out prow area.

And here is the engineering section; it reminds me of a terrible, terrible movie that came out ten years ago and starred Will Smith, Kevin Klein, Salma Hayek, and Kenneth Branagh:









This unconvincing dummy is miming shoveling coal.

[Big Orange]

Then we finally come to the indoor museum, which is kinda boring, but has loads of info if you've got the patience:




Concorde's engine, for some reason (sorry for crappy quality).


A later Victorian corkscrew propeller and craggy rudder.




A semi-interesting wall painting of the SS Great Britain's interior.

[Frank Hipper]

Hmm. This is surprising considering that ships of her type sailed all the way to Norway/Spain and often carried such non water-friendly cargo like silk/spices.

Might I trouble you for your source?

My pleasure.

Galleons and Galleys, by John F. Guilmartin; caption to photo of a model of the Bremen Cog on page 86.

...The Bremen cog also formed the basis for a full-sized reconstruction that proved to have surpringly good sailing qualities, though the vessel was wet in all but the gentlest seas.

More on the topic:

Cogs had one further quality which would today appear unpleasant. The deck planks were laid at right angles to the sides, rather than longitudinally as they would on modern vessels, and did not form a watertight join with the sides of the ship.

This meant that sea spray and rain water falling on to the deck did not collect on the surface. As a result the vessel was much more stable when at sea.

Even when when the ship was heeling, the water on deck did not form a pond on the lower side, weighing it down still further, but instead flowed straight into the bilges, where it acted as additional ballast and provided a counterbalance.

This meant that the risk of capsizing in bad weather was substantially reduced. However, when the reconstruction of the Bremen cog was being designed at Bremerhaven, it was considered important to have a water-tight deck, which meant that it was necessary to cut several large scuppers into the sides of the ship, at deck level, so that any water on the deck would flow overboard.

These scuppers, of course, reduced the very height of freeboard which had given the Hanseatic cogs their seaworthiness. The crew found that they had to reach for the pumps not only when leaks occured, but also after every shower of rain or splash of sea spray, as the ship's high sides meant that it was impossible to remove the water by means of the bailer.

Fragments of a wooden pump have been found on the Kalmar cog (Wreck V), which had an outlet channel in the upper edge of the aft crossbeam. The Bremen cog had not been supplied with a pump, but a chamber with the outlet leading overboard had been built under the sterncastle, so it seems logical that the intention was to install a pump.

That the hold was water logged had far-reaching implications for the method by which cargo was stowed on cogs. All goods which could be damaged by water or which might rot in damp conditions had to be transported in water-tight containers, which, at that time, meant barrels.

[Thanas]

^Interesting. Thank you for that, I wasn't aware of the extent of those problems (probably because the ship museum does not mention them anywhere last time I went there).

Oh, and those are lovely pictures, Big Orange. I especially love the one of the stack.

[erik_t]

Are there other pictures of the screw and rudder? The obviously extemporized screw-blade improvements fascinate me, as well as the hinge line of the rudder being far forward of the rudder proper, perhaps even ahead of the plane of the screw!

[Frank Hipper]

Are there other pictures of the screw and rudder? The obviously extemporized screw-blade improvements fascinate me, as well as the hinge line of the rudder being far forward of the rudder proper, perhaps even ahead of the plane of the screw!

Those are not improvements; while the current prop is a modern recreation, the propellor was designed with those squared-off, paddle-like tips.

This photo of Big Orange's shows both upper and lower hinges of the rudder, and the hinge line is clearly aft of the propellor.

[Big Orange]

How many recreations of the Santa Maria are there? I can vaguely remember going onboard one in Bristol many years ago and it was not as inspired as the Matthew.

I've taken some more photos of the Bristol harbour.

[Frank Hipper]

How many recreations of the Santa Maria are there? I can vaguely remember going onboard one in Bristol many years ago and it was not as inspired as the Matthew.

I've taken some more photos of the Bristol harbour.

I'm not sure but there's quite a few.
Excluding static displays like the one in Columbus, Ohio and older examples no longer extant, like the one (possibly more?) built for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Google Image Search came up with these:
This one is singularly poor;while the forcastle would appear to be based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder artwork of circa 1565, that towering poop deck inspires no confidence, nor does the stumpy little bowsprit.
Judging from the wake it's cutting in that photo, she's got a considerably more powerful engine installed than Matthew's.

This one, however, looks really good; no unbalanced and clumsy features. Very much in line with the iconography that survives for small carracks of the time.
I'd rate it about equal to Matthew in authenticity.

This one....yikes. It works as a silhouette, but it's way too big for Santa Maria, and is clearly unable to actually sail with that rig.
It'd be a fun party boat for excursions, though. Rebuild it; refine the details, cut the third stage of the stern down, get rid of that superstructure on the main deck, and you could make a quasi-decent 15th century carrack-looking ship out of it.

While we're at it, there's a very well researched recreation of Columbus' caravel Nina that was built in Brazil, seen here rigged as a 4-masted caravella redonda.

[Shroom Man 777]

Why is there a very depressed-looking McDonalds looking like he's about to jump off the ledge and kill himself?

[Big Orange]

Old Ronald (a clown's more scarier than a king, even one with a eerily frozen face) is part of the "edgy" Banksy Exihibition.

[Aaron]

Very nice photos Big Orange. So the Great Britain had steam and sails on a metal hull? I knew that they existed but I'd never seen any decent photos before, thanks for putting them up. Fascinating stuff.