 |  serving Portishead, Portbury and Pill | |||||
| Home | News | Information | Events | Businesses | Contact | |
S S Great Western 
In 1835, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had a vision of connecting London and New York with regularly scheduled steam "packet boat" services. Transatlantic services of the day were operating under sail and being subject to the vagrancies of weather were slow and unpredictable. Brunel proposed to solve this problem by combining the latest theories of steam power with the proven economies of sailing by wind power. He planned to employ his theories on a grand scale and provide fast and reliable transportation across the Atlantic. In 1836 he formed the Great Western Steamship Company and begin building what was to be the largest ship in the world. 
The Great Western was built at Prince's Wharf in Wapping Bristol. It was a four masted paddle wheeler, made of oak with iron supports, 236 feet long, and displaced 2,340 tons. It was designed to carry an astonishing 148 passengers and even then almost half of it's interior was taken up by it's huge boilers. The main passenger saloon being 75 feet long by 34 feet wide and decorated in the Louis XIV style with 50 painted panels was considered very grand for it's time. Compared with the cramped conditions on sailing vessels it could provide the luxurious comfort of spacious accommodation. Brunel and the Great Western Steam Ship Company were not the only visionaries with plans to establish a transatlantic steam service. At about the same time, the British and American Steam Navigation Company was being formed in London with plans to build a rival ship, the SS British Queen. However they soon realised that their ship could not be completed in time to beat Brunel across the Atlantic. In haste they converted a cross Channel ship, the Sirius. To enable her to cross the Atlantic, most of her passenger accommodations had to be ripped out to make way for fuel storage. 
Brunel’s SS Great Western steaming by Portishead on her maiden voyage in a daring race to New York, 8th April 1838. The Sirius left Cork Ireland for New York on 4th of April 1938. Four days later, on the 8th of April 1938 the Great Western set sail from Bristol England, steaming past Pill, Portbury and Portishead on her maiden voyage. In the final stage of the race, the Sirius had to burn her cabin furniture, spare yards and a mast to make harbour, inspiring a similar sequence in Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 days. The Sirius arrived in New York on the 22nd of April and the Great Western arrived the next day after only 15 days at sea and with 200 tons of coal still aboard. The Blue Ribbon was awarded to the Great Western for setting the record with the fastest transatlantic travel speed of 8.66 knots. A one way crossing by a ship under sail would take over a month. The 15-day crossing by the Great Western and subsequent 14-day return voyage cut this time in half, proving the viability of steam driven oceanic travel. The stage was set for even more dramatic developments. The Great Western also had the dubious recognition of proving that ships could not travel under steam and sail at the same time, as cinders from the smoke stacks set fire to the sails. |
|