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 ss Great Britain

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Shelagh
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Shelagh


Number of posts : 12662
Registration date : 2008-01-11
Location : UK

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PostSubject: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptySun Oct 26, 2008 2:19 pm

I asked my husband what he would like to do on his birthday. He said he would like to see Isambard Brunel's steamship, ss Great Britain. So, we went to Bristol for the day:

http://www.ssgreatbritain.org/Home.aspx

ss Great Britain SS_Great_Britain
The ss Great Britain was a world first when she was launched in Bristol in 1843. This uniquely successful ship design brought together new technologies in a way which transformed world travel.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the most daring of the great Victorian engineers, conceived the groundbreaking combination of a screw propeller, an iron hull, and a massive 1000-horsepower steam engine.
She was immediately successful - on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic the ss Great Britain easily broke the previous speed record.
Although effectively a prototype, she continued sailing until 1886, and travelled thirty-two times around the world and nearly one million miles at sea.
She was finally abandoned in the Falkland Islands, in 1937, after more than 40 years use as a floating warehouse.
In 1970 an ambitious salvage effort brought her home to Bristol, where today she is conserved in the dry dock where she was originally built.
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zadaconnaway
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptySun Oct 26, 2008 3:02 pm

First, wish your husband a Happy Birthday for me.

That is quite a ship, and I can understand him wanting to see it. What a huge piece of history, and a beautiful ship. Why did they turn it inoto a floating warehouse since she was still seaworthy? Thank you for sharing the photo with us here.
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Shelagh
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptySun Oct 26, 2008 3:08 pm

Preserving the ship



In 1970, the ss Great Britain returned to the dry dock, in the Great Western Dockyard, where she was built between 1839 and 1843. The Great Western Dockyard is a vital context for understanding the ship, and the conjunction of ship in original dock is of international importance. The ss Great Britain’s historic association with this site therefore makes it the most fitting place to conserve her.
Conserving the more than 160-year-old iron hull on this site is exceptionally difficult as the dock was a damp environment, and moisture in the air made the process of corrosion continue quickly. Exposure to rain and moisture in the air (humidity) in Bristol allowed the ship to continue to corrode, particularly accelerated by salt infestation in the wrought iron structure.
Iron corrodes when it comes into contact with water and air. It forms new substances called ‘corrosion products’. Iron oxide – or common rust – is one of these. There are many others, such as iron chloride, magnetite, and akaganeite.
Salt, or chlorides, make the problem of corrosion much worse. This is partly because they are hygroscopic, which means that they strongly attract water, even out of the air. When salts build up and bond with iron or steel they make the metal rust faster. The lower parts of the hull are worst affected because of this process and their exposure to salty seawater for 127 years. These salts are extremely difficult to remove, and they cause very severe corrosion.
Saving the ss Great Britain demanded expertise from research scientists, iron conservators, architects, structural engineers and others.
New research at Cardiff University demonstrated that corrosion could destroy the ss Great Britain within a few years. This research also showed that the iron ship could survive if she is protected from humidity in a very dry environment. At 20% relative humidity (RH) or less this kind of salt driven corrosion virtually ceases. The RH of Bristol’s historic harbour is typically around 80%. 20% is more akin to the Arizona Desert.
Due to her fragility the ship could not be moved. Working together with the curators and specialists at the Trust, the team implemented two complementary strategies to protect the iron hull from humidity.
Firstly, they enclosed the most fragile parts of the ship, below the waterline, in a giant dehumidification chamber, made by roofing the dry dock with glass. The glass ”sea” is therefore watertight and airtight.
This protects the hull below the waterline, where the corrosion problem is worst because the iron is most heavily contaminated with salt. Two special dehumidification machines dry the air both in the dry dock and inside the ship. The hull is protected from moisture below the waterline on the exterior. On the interior it is protected all over, from top to bottom.
The dehumidification machine works by sucking in air and dries it by forcing the air through a very water-absorbent chemical powder, before blowing the now dry air up over the surface of the ship and through its interiors. There are ducts that collect the blown air to then recycle it through the machine.
This system means the air beneath the glass roof is kept at a constant 20% RH, and corrosion can no longer continue.
The second element of the strategy was to protect the less vulnerable upper section of the hull. This was treated in a different manner as there is not as much salt contamination in the topsides. These could be protected from corrosion without drying the surrounding air. Conservators cleaned the upper part of the ship, above the waterline, using ultra-high pressure water jets. Then they covered these ‘topsides’ with several coats of anti-corrosion paint, shielding them from the weather.
This method could not be used below the waterline as there are salts bonded in the iron. The salts attract moisture, and draw it into the iron, and this drives the corrosion process. This process makes the iron corrode even if it is painted. The only realistic way to tackle the problem below the waterline is to remove the moisture from the air.
The conservators then carefully cleaned the hull, removing fibreglass patches used in the 1970s to fill holes in the hull plates. There are hundreds of holes in the iron hull although most of them cannot now be seen. Most of the holes have been filled with resin, to recreate the shape of the hull without altering the original fabric.
It took a team of seven conservators three years to complete this work.
Conservation is the process of caring for objects in order to keep their historic significance. Different methods such as preservation, restoration, or reconstruction might be used. These are three different and distinct parts of conservation. It is important to use them carefully as they can change people’s reactions to historic objects. Caring for historic objects can involve difficult decisions.
Because of the ss Great Britain’s importance, a decision was taken to preserve all parts of the ship which existed before her return to Bristol in 1970, when she became a museum. These parts make up the original working ship, and tell us so much about her history. They help us to understand her design and to interpret the changes and events of her working life.



Visit the site to learn more about the ship:

http://www.ssgreatbritain.org/Home.aspx
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zadaconnaway
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptySun Oct 26, 2008 6:24 pm

Truly a Herculean effort, but well worth the preservation of such a noble ship.
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A Ahad
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptyMon Oct 27, 2008 4:45 am

Your husband has great taste, Shelagh. He must be a very imaginative person with an apetite for adventure. Awesome ship that too. I love ships and anything to do with ocean sailing, especially from the bygone eras and it's great to see vessels like these being preserved for posterity.
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Shelagh
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptyMon Oct 27, 2008 6:59 am

My husband loves anything historical, Abdul. This video shows the Great Britain in the Falklands:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UcCunH6rxtM&NR=1

and this video on visitbristol.co.uk shows the ship restored to its former glory:

http://visitbristol.co.uk/site/things-to-do/brunels-ss-great-britain-p25861?video=1
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A Ahad
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptyMon Oct 27, 2008 7:29 am

Those are great vids... especially the first one. Do you think the ship might be haunted? I mean, it has been to a lot of places and a lot of things have happened onboard over the ages? Laughing
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Malcolm
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptyMon Oct 27, 2008 11:51 am

What a great trip that must have been. A beautiful ship. I'm really a preservationist, so I love seeing old things preserved so that they can be enjoyed--as your husband did--by countless other people.

Thanks for sharing the photo and the information.

Malcolm
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Shelagh
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PostSubject: Re: ss Great Britain   ss Great Britain EmptyMon Oct 27, 2008 3:22 pm

I didn't feel any sense of the ship being haunted. The thing that struck me most was the amount of energy needed to drive the propeller. This proved to be too costly and the ship was converted to a sailing ship for thirty years.

It was a great trip and we can go back again anytime during the next twelve months using the same tickets.
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