CONVERSION OF THE STEAMER GREAT BRITAIN INTO A SAILING SHIP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3640, 13 March 1883, Page 4

CONVERSION OF THE STEAMER GREAT BRITAIN INTO A SAILING SHIP.

An item of news from the Mersey shipbuilding yards, where very great activity has prevailed during , the present year, will interest Australian readers, says a. Home paper. Among the new works undertaken, .such as the "building and launching- of several monster ocean steamships for the Atlantic passenger trade, and another μ-igiintic Indian troopship, one firm, that of Messrs 0. E. and Grayson, has completed the conversion into a sailing- ship of that well-known steiimer the Great Britain. She has been classed Al at Lloyd's, and sailed a few weeks ago for San Francisco, with a cargo of upwards of 3000 tons of coal, "having at the same time," it is said, ' ; a freeboard'of 1 Oft., which is equal to 30 per cent, space buoyancy.' . The Great Britain must be a very old friend to many Australians. She has probably carried more passengers and emigrants to the antipodes than any ship afloat. Time was when she was one of the wonders of the deep. "When first launched, forty years ago, people visited her in crowds, and admired her magnificent proportions. But her nose was gradually jiut out of joint by still larger ships, till the Great Eastern came, and practically put a limit to the dimensions of constructions afloat. 13ut no one who knows the Great Britain in her prime would have foretold that she could have ended her career as ;i sailing collier. After this, such is the extraordinary progress in naval architecture, we may wonder what fate is in .store for the splendid fleet of the Orient lino and other magnificent vessels "which at present hold pre-eminence among ocean-going ships.