S. S. Great Britain

Bristol UK: Trading Ltd. , 1971. Paperback. In quite good condition.. Octavo, [20cm/8inches], paperbound with pictorial covers, pp. 32. Fully illustrated w/ b-w halftone plates. Please feel free to inquire as to particulars and/or additional photographs. ... SS Great Britain is a museum ship and former passenger steamship, which was advanced for her time. She was the longest passenger ship in the world from 1845 to 1854. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859), for the Great Western Steamship Company's transatlantic service between Bristol and New York. While other ships had been built of iron or equipped with a screw propeller, the Great Britain was the first to combine these features in a large ocean-going ship. She was the first iron steamer to cross the Atlantic, which she did in 1845, in the time of 14 days. In 1970, after lying under water and abandoned for 33 years half a world away, Sir Jack Arnold Hayward, OBE (1923-2015) paid for the vessel to be raised and repaired enough to be towed north through the Atlantic back to the United Kingdom, and returned to the Bristol dry dock where she had been built 127 years earlier. Hayward was a prominent businessman, developer, philanthropist and owner of the English football club Wolverhampton Wanderers. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, the Great Britain is an award-winning visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150,000 and 200,000 visitors annually.