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HMS Amethyst (1844)
HMS Amethyst was a gaff rigged three mast sailing boat. She was a Spartan-class 26-gun sixth rate launched in 1844 and sold in 1869 for use as a cable vessel. She served in the China War 1856-60 (in the Canton River) and intervened in the Mexican Civil War in 1859 by blockading Mazatlán. This was during a voyage which took her around the world. Together with HMS ''Iris'' she was loaned by the Admiralty to the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1864, both ships being extensively modified in 1865 for ferrying the Atlantic cable from the manufacturer's works at Enderby's wharf, in East Greenwich, London, to the ''Great Eastern'' at her Sheerness mooring. The cable was coiled down into great cylindrical tanks at the Wharf before being fed into the 'Great Eastern'. The 'Amethyst' and 'Iris' transferred the 2500 miles (4022 km) of cable to the 'Great Eastern', beginning in February 1865, an operation that took over three months. Both ships were used for the same purpose again i ...
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Gaff Rigged
Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and shape of the sail, a gaff rig will have running backstays rather than permanent backstays. The gaff enables a fore and aft sail to be four sided, rather than triangular. A gaff rig typically carries 25 percent more sail than an equivalent Bermudian rig for a given hull design. A sail hoisted from a gaff is called a gaff-rigged (or, less commonly, gaff rigged or gaffrigged) sail. Description Gaff rig remains the most popular fore-aft rig for schooner and barquentine mainsails and other course sails, and spanker sails on a square rigged vessel are always gaff rigged. On other rigs, particularly the sloop, ketch and yawl, gaff rigged sails were once common but have now been largely replaced by the Bermuda rig sail, which, in addition t ...
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HMS Iris (1840)
HMS ''Iris'' was a 26-gun sixth-rate frigate launched on 14 July 1840 from Devonport Dockyard. She spent some time with the West Africa Squadron suppressing the slave trade and later with the East Indies Station was involved in operations in Borneo. ''Iris'' was the first flagship of the Australia Station between 1859 and 1861 during which time she participated in the First Taranaki War.Bastock, p. 27. In 1864 she was extensively modified to allow her to ferry transatlantic telegraph cable to the cable-laying ship ''Great Eastern''. She was decommissioned and sold off in 1869. Service 1840–1861 Between 1840 and 15 August 1843, she served with the West Africa Squadron. On 28April 1841, her ship's boats were involved in burning the warehouses and other property of Niara Bely in Farenya, on the Pongo River. ''Iris'' was subsequently assigned to the East Indies Station. In 1844 she raced the French ships ''Sirène'', ''Sabine'' and ''Victorieuse'' at Singapore and beat ...
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Atlantic Telegraph Company
The Atlantic Telegraph Company was a company formed on 6 November 1856 to undertake and exploit a commercial telegraph cable across the Atlantic ocean, the first such telecommunications link. History Cyrus Field, American businessman and financier, set his sights on laying the first transatlantic underwater telegraph cable after having been contacted by Frederic Newton Gisborne who attempted to connect St. Johns, Newfoundland to New York City, but failed due to lack of funding. After inquiring about the feasibility of a transatlantic underwater cable to Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury of the U.S. Navy, Field formed an agreement with the Englishmen John Watkins Brett and Charles Tilston Bright to create the Atlantic Telegraph Company. It was incorporated in December, 1856 with £350,000 capital, raised principally in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow. The board of directors was composed of eighteen members from the United Kingdom, nine from the United States, and ...
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SS Great Eastern
SS ''Great Eastern'' was an iron sail-powered, paddle wheel and screw-propelled steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London. She was the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. Her length of was surpassed only in 1899 by the 17,274-gross-ton , her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 20,904-gross-ton and her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by the 4,234-passenger . The ship having five funnels (which were later reduced to four) was unusual for the time. The vessel also had the largest set of paddle wheels. Brunel knew her affectionately as the "Great Babe". He died in 1859 shortly after her maiden voyage, during which she was damaged by an explosion. After repairs, she plied for several years as a passenger liner between Britain and North Ame ...
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Enderby's Wharf
Enderby's Wharf is a wharf and industrial site on the south bank of the Thames in Greenwich, London, associated with Telcon and other companies. It has a history of more than 150 years of production of submarine communication cables and associated equipment, and is one of the most important sites in the history of submarine communications. Location The wharf lies on the Greenwich Peninsula, a little to the north of the historic centre of Greenwich. It is between the Thames and the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, across the river from Cubitt Town. It covers an area of some and has a frontage of around . History The wharf was first developed commercially by the whaling company of Samuel Enderby & Sons. The site was first acquired by Samuel Enderby II, with Morden College assisting in the acquisition of the naval ammunition wharf. It was Samuel Enderby III who initially developed the site along with brothers Charles and George, who acquired the site for a ropeworks. Enderbys al ...
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The Sail And Steam Navy List
''The Sail and Steam Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy 1815–1889'' by Rif Winfield and David Lyon is a historical reference work providing details of all recorded ships in commission or intended to serve in the Royal Navy from 1815 to 1889. Where available in Admiralty records (from which all the data is sourced), it gives the location of construction, dates of construction (ordering, keel laying, launch and commissioning), principal dimensions and tonnage, armament, machinery (for steam vessels) and fate of every ship of the Royal Navy over the period. David Lyon's ''The Sailing Navy List: All the Ships of the Royal Navy, Built, Purchased and Captured, 1688-1860'' had been published in 1993, a ground-breaking study of the sailing vessels of the Royal Navy from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 until the close of the Age of Sail. He had planned a follow-up on the ships of the Royal Navy in the era of transition from sail to steam power, and began work in preparatio ...
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The Cable Passed From The Works Into The Hulk Lying In The Thames At Greenwich RMG PU6188
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pron ...
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1844 Ships
In the Philippines, it was the only leap year with 365 days, as December 31 was skipped when 1845 began after December 30. Events January–March * January 15 – The University of Notre Dame, based in the city of the same name, receives its charter from Indiana. * February 27 – The Dominican Republic gains independence from Haiti. * February 28 – A gun on the USS ''Princeton'' explodes while the boat is on a Potomac River cruise, killing two United States Cabinet members and several others. * March 8 ** King Oscar I ascends to the throne of Sweden–Norway upon the death of his father, Charles XIV/III John. ** The Althing, the parliament of Iceland, is reopened after 45 years of closure. * March 9 – Giuseppe Verdi's opera ''Ernani'' debuts at Teatro La Fenice, Venice. * March 12 – The Columbus and Xenia Railroad, the first railroad planned to be built in Ohio, is chartered. * March 13 – The dictator Carlos Antonio López becomes first President of Paraguay ...
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Corvettes Of The Royal Navy
A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the sloop-of-war. The modern roles that a corvette fulfills include coastal patrol craft, missile boat and fast attack craft. These corvettes are typically between 500 tons and 2,000 .although recent designs may approach 3,000 tons, having size and capabilities that overlap with smaller frigates. However unlike contemporary frigates, a modern corvette does not have sufficient endurance and seaworthiness for long voyages. The word "corvette" is first found in Middle French, a diminutive of the Dutch word ''corf'', meaning a "basket", from the Latin ''corbis''. The rank "corvette captain", equivalent in many navies to "lieutenant commander", derives from the name of this type of ship. The rank is the most junior of three "captain" ranks in sev ...
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