Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 27. Chapters: Enmore (1858), Fire-float Pyronaut, HMS Arethusa (1781), HMS Breda (1654), HMS Cleopatra (1779), HMS Druid (1783), HMS Loch Dunvegan (K425), HMS Nassau (1785), HMS Northumberland (1679), HMS Porlock Bay (K650), HMS St Patrick (1666), Lively class frigate, Matthew (ship), Meander (1855), Minerva class frigate, MV Rozi, Roslin Castle (1819), Royal Adelaide (1865), RV Coastal Guardian, Spirit of Gosport, SS Great Britain, SS Great Western. Excerpt: SS Great Britain is a museum ship and former passenger steamship, advanced for her time. She was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel 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, 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. When launched in 1843, Great Britain was by far the largest vessel afloat. However, her protracted construction and high cost had left her owners in a difficult financial position, and they were forced out of business in 1846 after the ship was stranded by a navigational error. Sold for salvage and repaired, Great Britain carried thousands of immigrants to Australia until converted to sail in 1881. Three years later, the vessel was retired to the Falkland Islands where she was used as a warehouse, quarantine ship and coal hulk until scuttled in 1937. In 1970, Great Britain was returned to the Bristol dry dock where she was first built. Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, Core Collection, the vessel is an award-winning visitor attraction and museum ship in Bristol Harbour, with between 150, 000-170, 000 visitors annually. After the initial success of its first liner, SS Great Western of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company collected materials for a sister ship, tentatively named City of New York. The same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully on Great Western-Isambard Brunel, Thomas Guppy, Christopher Claxton and William Patterson-were again assembled for the new project. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation was at its height, would come to assert overall control over design of the ship-a state of affairs that would have far-reaching consequences for the company. Construction of the vessel would be carried out in a specially adapted dry dock in Br