. Every boy's book of railways and steamships . reached New York in due course,by which time the Britannia had been unload-ing a couple of days. This was the first inter-national race across the Atlantic. The result w^asnot soothing to American pride, and steps weresoon in progress to bring about an E. K. CoUinss clippers had been among themost notable vessels of their day, and the go-aheadYankee, aided by a Government subsidy, inaugu-rated the Collinss Line, avowedly to sweep theCunarders ofi* the ocean. His first quartette ofnew vessels consisted of the Atlantic, Arctic, Balti
. Every boy's book of railways and steamships . reached New York in due course,by which time the Britannia had been unload-ing a couple of days. This was the first inter-national race across the Atlantic. The result w^asnot soothing to American pride, and steps weresoon in progress to bring about an E. K. CoUinss clippers had been among themost notable vessels of their day, and the go-aheadYankee, aided by a Government subsidy, inaugu-rated the Collinss Line, avowedly to sweep theCunarders ofi* the ocean. His first quartette ofnew vessels consisted of the Atlantic, Arctic, Baltic and Pacific. The first-named was276 feet in length, 45 feet beam, and 31|- feet indepth. The breadth over the paddle-boxes was75 feet; the main saloon was 70 feet long andthe dining saloon was 60 feet by 20 feet. Novessel had ever been floated in which there wassuch luxurious accommodation for the Collins was speedily the proudest man in theshipping world, for in 1851 the Baltic steamedfrom Queenstown to New York in 9 days 11. BLUE RIBBON OF THE ATLANTIC 225 hours; and the Atlantic, a year later, with9 days 17 hours, set up a new record for theeastward passage. The career of the CollinssLine, however, was meteoric in the extreme. Toreckless expenditure was added the loss of twoof the vessels, in which disasters hundreds ofpassengers lost their lives, and in 1858 thisAmerican line ceased to exist. This same year witnessed the launch on theThames of the Great Eastern, an iron vesselpropelled by paddles and a single screw : Lengthnearly 700 feet; width 83 feet, or 120 feet overthe paddle-boxes; gross tonnage, 10,000. Shewas designed to carry passengers and crew, total-ling 4400, in the British and Australian trade,but was placed on the Atlantic route, where sheproved to be a commercial failure. From a purelysea-going point of view the vessel was a success,attaining a speed of 15 knots on the preliminarytrial trip. In the years 1865-66 the GreatEastern laid two oce
Size: 1234px × 2024px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidever, booksubjectrailroads
