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PS Comet
The PS (paddle steamer ) ''Comet'' was built in 1812 for Henry Bell, hotel and baths owner in Helensburgh, and began a passenger service on 15 August 1812 on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. History Henry Bell had become interested in steam-propelled boats, and corresponded with Robert Fulton to learn from the ''Charlotte Dundas'' venture. In the winter of 1811/1812 he got John and Charles Wood of John Wood and Company, shipbuilders of Port Glasgow, to build a paddle steamer which was named ''Comet'', named after the "Great Comet" of 1811. The 28 ton burthen craft had a deck long with a beam of . It had two paddle wheels on each side, driven by a single-cylinder engine rated at . The engine was made by John Robertson of Glasgow, and the boiler by David Napier, Camlachie, Glasgow (a story has it that they were evolved from an experimental little steam engine which Bell installed to pump sea wa ...
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Port Glasgow
Port Glasgow ( gd, Port Ghlaschu, ) is the second-largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19,426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16,617 persons. The most recent census in 2011 states that the population has declined to 15,414. It is located immediately to the east of Greenock and was previously a burgh in the county of Renfrewshire. Originally a fishing hamlet named Newark, Port Glasgow came about as a result of large ships being unable to navigate the shallow and meandering River Clyde to the centre of the city of Glasgow. As a result, it was formed as a remote port for Glasgow in 1668, and became known as 'New Port Glasgow', which was shortened to 'Port Glasgow' in 1775. Port Glasgow was home to dry docks and shipbuilding beginning in 1780. The town grew from the central area of the present town and thus many of the town's historic buildings and people are found here. Port Glasgow expande ...
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Yard (sailing)
A yard is a spar on a mast from which sails are set. It may be constructed of timber or steel or from more modern materials such as aluminium or carbon fibre. Although some types of fore and aft rigs have yards, the term is usually used to describe the horizontal spars used on square rigged sails. In addition, for some decades after square sails were generally dispensed with, some yards were retained for deploying wireless (radio) aerials and signal flags. Parts of the yard ; Bunt : The short section of the yard between the ''slings'' that attach it to the mast. ; Quarters : The port and starboard quarters form the bulk of the yard, extending from the slings to the fittings for the lifts and braces. ; Yardarms : The outermost tips of the yard: outboard from the attachments for the lifts. Note that these terms refer to stretches of the same spar, not to separate component parts. Controlling the yard The yard can rotate around the mast to allow the direction of the ves ...
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Firth Of Forth
The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meaning a narrow inlet. ''Forth'' stems from the name of the river; this is ''*Vo-rit-ia'' (slow running) in Proto-Celtic, yielding '' Foirthe'' in Old Gaelic and '' Gweryd'' in Welsh. It was known as ''Bodotria'' in Roman times. In the Norse sagas it was known as the ''Myrkvifiörd''. An early Welsh name is ''Merin Iodeo'', or the "Sea of Iudeu". Geography and economy Geologically, the Firth of Forth is a fjord, formed by the Forth Glacier in the last glacial period. The drainage basin for the Firth of Forth covers a wide geographic area including places as far from the shore as Ben Lomond, Cumbernauld, Harthill, Penicuik and the edges of Gleneagles Golf Course. Many towns line the shores, as well as the petrochemical complexes at ...
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Inveraray
Inveraray ( or ; gd, Inbhir Aora meaning "mouth of the Aray") is a town in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It is on the western shore of Loch Fyne, near its head, and on the A83 road. It is a former royal burgh, the traditional county town of Argyll, and ancestral seat to the Duke of Argyll. During the Second World War the Combined Operations Training Centre, located close to the town, was an important military facility. Coat of arms The town's coat of arms depicts a net cast out over the ocean, entangled in which are five herrings and the Latin motto "SEMPER TIBI PENDEAT HALEC" (possible English translation: "may a herring always hang to thee"). Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, in his 1909 book ''A Complete Guide to Heraldry'', notes the following: ''There'' is no doubt of its ancient usage. ...and the blazon of the coat, according to the form it is depicted upon the Corporate seal, would be for the field: "The sea proper, therein a net suspended from the dexter chief and the sini ...
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Campbeltown
Campbeltown (; gd, Ceann Loch Chille Chiarain or ) is a town and former royal burgh in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies by Campbeltown Loch on the Kintyre peninsula. Campbeltown became an important centre for Scotch whisky, and a busy fishing port. The 2018 population estimate was 4,600 indicating a reduction since the 2011 census. History Originally known as Kinlochkilkerran (an anglicization of the Gaelic, which means 'head of the loch by the kirk of Ciarán'), Campbeltown was renamed in the 17th century as ''Campbell's Town'' after Archibald Campbell (Earl of Argyle) was granted the site in 1667. Campbeltown Town Hall was completed in 1760. Whisky Campbeltown is one of five areas in Scotland categorised as a distinct malt whisky producing region, and is home to the Campbeltown single malts. At one point it had over 30 distilleries and proclaimed itself "the whisky capital of the world". However, a focus on quantity rather than quality, and the combination of Prohibiti ...
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Largs
Largs ( gd, An Leargaidh Ghallda) is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about from Glasgow. The original name means "the slopes" (''An Leargaidh'') in Scottish Gaelic. A popular seaside resort with a pier, the town markets itself on its historic links with the Vikings and an annual festival is held each year in early September. In 1263 it was the site of the Battle of Largs between the Norwegian and the Scottish armies. The National Mòd has also been held here in the past. History There is evidence of human activity in the vicinity of Largs which can be dated to the Neolithic era. The Haylie Chambered Tomb in Douglas Park dates from c. 3000 BC. Largs evolved from the estates of North Cunninghame over which the Montgomeries of Skelmorlie became temporal lords in the seventeenth century. Sir Robert Montgomerie built Skelmorlie Aisle in the ancient kirk of Largs in 1636 as a family mausoleum. Today the monument is all that remains of the old kirk. ...
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Firth Of Clyde
The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles (it is 164 metres deep at its deepest). The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula, which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. Within the Firth of Clyde is another major island – the Isle of Bute. Given its strategic location at the entrance to the middle and upper Clyde, Bute played a vital naval military role during World War II. Geography At its entrance, the firth is about wide. At one area in its upper reaches, it is joined by Loch Long and the Gare Loch. This area includes the large anchorage off of Greenock that is known as the Tail of the Bank. (The “Bank” is a reference to the shoal, sandbank and shoal that separates the firth from the estuary of t ...
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Flywheel From P
A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, assuming the flywheel's moment of inertia is constant (i.e., a flywheel with fixed mass and second moment of area revolving about some fixed axis) then the stored (rotational) energy is directly associated with the square of its rotational speed. Since a flywheel serves to store mechanical energy for later use, it is natural to consider it as a kinetic energy analogue of an electrical inductor. Once suitably abstracted, this shared principle of energy storage is described in the generalized concept of an accumulator. As with other types of accumulators, a flywheel inherently smooths sufficiently small deviations in the power output of a system, thereby effectively playing the role of a low-pass filter with respect to the mechanical velocity ...
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Engine Of Comet (1812 Steamboat)
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power generation), heat energy (e.g. geothermal), chemical energy, electric potential and nuclear energy (from nuclear fission or nuclear fusion). Many of these processes generate heat as an intermediate energy form, so heat engines have special importance. Some natural processes, such as atmospheric convection cells convert environmental heat into motion (e.g. in the form of rising air currents). Mechanical energy is of particular importance in transportation, but also plays a role in many industrial processes such as cutting, grinding, crushing, and mixing. Mechanical heat engines convert heat into work via various thermodynamic processes. The internal combustion engine is perhaps the most common example of a mechanical heat engine, in whi ...
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Bowling
Bowling is a target sport and recreational activity in which a player rolls a ball toward pins (in pin bowling) or another target (in target bowling). The term ''bowling'' usually refers to pin bowling (most commonly ten-pin bowling), though in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries, bowling could also refer to target bowling, such as lawn bowls. In pin bowling, the goal is to knock over pins on a long playing surface known as a ''lane''. Lanes have a wood or synthetic surface onto which protective lubricating oil is applied in different specified oil patterns that affect ball motion. A strike is achieved when all the pins are knocked down on the first roll, and a spare is achieved if all the pins are knocked over on a second roll. Common types of pin bowling include ten-pin, candlepin, duckpin, nine-pin, and five-pin. The historical game skittles is the forerunner of modern pin bowling. In target bowling, the aim is usually to get the ball as close to a ma ...
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Chambers Book Of Days
''Chambers Book of Days'' (''The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection with the Calendar, Including Anecdote, Biography, & History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character'') was written by the Scottish author Robert Chambers and first published in 1864. A new version of ''Chambers Book of Days'' was published by Chambers Harrap in 2004. ''The Book of Days'' (1864) ''The Book of Days'' was Robert Chambers' last publication, and perhaps his most elaborate. It was a huge collection of short, largely factual pieces which today would generally be bracketed as "trivia" but very interesting trivia. The formula has been much repeated. It is supposed that his excessive labour in connection with this book hastened his death. It was published in two large volumes, each over 840 pages long, and, for its day, was well-illustrated with engraved drawings linked to the articles. Its full title is ''The Book of Days: A Miscellany of Popula ...
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