RMS Oceanic (1899)
RMS ''Oceanic'' was a transatlantic ocean liner built for the White Star Line. She sailed on her maiden voyage on 6 September 1899 and was the largest ship in the world until 1901. At the outbreak of World War I she was converted into an armed merchant cruiser. On 8 August 1914 she was commissioned into Royal Navy service. On 25 August 1914, the newly designated HMS ''Oceanic'' departed Southampton to patrol the waters from the North Scottish mainland to Faroe. On 8 September she ran aground and was wrecked off the island of Foula, in the Shetland Islands. Background In the late 1890s the White Star Line's existing flagship ocean liners and both launched in 1889, had become outmoded due to rapid advances in marine technology: Their competitors, the Cunard Line, had introduced the and in 1893, and from 1897 the German Norddeutscher Lloyd began introducing four new s beginning with . In order to compete with these ships the White Star Line needed to produce a new flagship ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harland And Wolff
Harland & Wolff Holdings plc is a British shipbuilding and Metal fabrication, fabrication company headquartered in London with sites in Belfast, Arnish yard, Arnish, Appledore, Torridge, Appledore and Methil. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Today, the company is focused on supporting five sectors: Navy, Defence, Petroleum industry, Energy, Cruise ship, Cruise & Ferry, Renewable energy, Renewables and Maritime transport, Commercial. It offers services including technical services, fabrication & construction, repair & maintenance, in-service support, conversion and decommissioning. Having entered administration (law), administration for the second time in five years, it was bought by Navantia in January 2025. Overview Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the White Star Line, including Olympic-class ocean liner, ''Olympic''-class trio – , and HMHS Britannic, HMHS ''Britannic''. Outside of White ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in European theatre of World War I, Europe and the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, Middle East, as well as in parts of African theatre of World War I, Africa and the Asian and Pacific theatre of World War I, Asia-Pacific, and in Europe was characterised by trench warfare; the widespread use of Artillery of World War I, artillery, machine guns, and Chemical weapons in World War I, chemical weapons (gas); and the introductions of Tanks in World War I, tanks and Aviation in World War I, aircraft. World War I was one of the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated World War I casualties, 10 million military dead and more than 20 million wounded, plus some 10 million civilian de ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pounds Sterling
Sterling (Currency symbol, symbol: Pound sign, £; ISO 4217, currency code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound is the main unit of account, unit of sterling, and the word ''Pound (currency), pound'' is also used to refer to the British currency generally, often qualified in international contexts as the British pound or the pound sterling. Sterling is the world's oldest currency in continuous use since its inception. In 2022, it was the fourth-most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro, and the Japanese yen. Together with those three currencies and the renminbi, it forms the basket of currencies that special drawing rights#Value definition, calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights. As of late 2022, sterling is also the fourth most-held reserve currency in Foreign exchange reserves, global reserves. The Bank of England is the central bank for sterling, issui ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel ( ; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engineering giants", and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, hochanged the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions". Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first purpose-built transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering. Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his career, Brunel achieved many engineering firsts, including assisting his father in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river (the River Thames) and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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SS Cymric
SS ''Cymric'' was a steamship of the White Star Line built by Harland & Wolff in Belfast and launched on 12 October 1897. History Design ''Cymric'' had originally been intended to be an enlarged version of ''SS Georgic'', being a combination of a passenger liner and livestock carrier, with accommodation for only First Class passengers. During the stages of her design layout, it became clearer to the designers at Harland and Wolff that combining passengers and livestock had become rather unpopular, so the spaces designated for cattle were reconfigured into Third Class accommodations. ''Cymric'' retained her relatively small and lower-powered machinery, intended to drive the ship at the slower, more economical speeds of a cargo-liner. When her livestock spaces were removed in favour of more passenger accommodation, the high internal volume provided by the former cargo space and the relatively small machinery space (as opposed to the more speed-orientated passenger liners of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Keel Laying
Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a shipbuilding, ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one of the four specially celebrated events in a ship's life; the others are Ceremonial ship launching, launching, Ship commissioning, commissioning, and Ship decommissioning, decommissioning. Earlier, the event recognized as the keel laying was the initial placement of the central timber making up the backbone of a vessel, called the keel. As steel ships replaced wooden ones, the central timber gave way to a central steel beam. Modern ships are most commonly built in a series of pre-fabricated, complete hull sections rather than around a single keel. The event recognized as the keel laying is the first joining of modular components, or the lowering of the first module into place in the building dock. It is now often called "keel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element of a watercraft, important for stability. On some sailboats, it may have a fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose as well. The keel laying, laying of the keel is often the initial step in constructing a ship. In the British and American shipbuilding traditions, this event marks the beginning date of a ship's construction. Etymology The word "keel" comes from Old English language, Old English , Old Norse , = "ship" or "keel". It has the distinction of being regarded by some scholars as the first word in the English language recorded in writing, having been recorded by Gildas in his 6th century Latin work ''De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae'', under the spelling ''cyulae'' (he was referring to the three ships that the Saxons first arrived in). is the Latin word for "keel" and is the origin of the term careening, careen (to clean a keel and the hull in general, often by rolling the ship on its side). An ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. On 1 September 1970, the company merged with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) to form Hapag-Lloyd. Establishment of the company The company was founded by the Bremen merchants Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann on 20 February 1857, after the dissolution of the New York City, New York based Ocean Steam Navigation Company, a joint German-American enterprise. The new shipping company had no direct association with the United Kingdom, British maritime classification society Lloyd's Register, but by the mid-19th century, "Lloyd" was commonly used to refer to NDL (an earlier user of the term in the same context was the Trieste- ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cunard Line
The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been registered in Hamilton, Bermuda. In 1839, Samuel Cunard was awarded the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, and the next year formed the British and North American Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company in Glasgow with shipowner Sir George Burns together with Robert Napier, the famous Scottish steamship engine designer and builder, to operate the line's four pioneer paddle steamers on the Liverpool–Halifax–Boston route. For most of the next 30 years, Cunard held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic voyage. However, in the 1870s Cunard fell behind its rivals, the White Star Line and the Inman Line. To meet this competition, in 1879 the firm was reorganised as the Cunard Steamship Company Ltd, to raise capital. In 19 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the first, largest, fastest, most heavily armed, or best known. Over the years, the term "flagship" has become a metaphor used in industries such as broadcasting, automobiles, education, technology, airlines, and retail to refer to their highest quality, best known, or most expensive products and locations. Naval use In common naval use, the term ''flagship'' is fundamentally a temporary designation; the flagship is wherever the admiral's flag is being flown. However, admirals have always needed additional facilities, including a meeting room large enough to hold all the captains of the fleet and a place for the admiral's staff to make plans and draw up orders. Historically, only larger ships could accommodate such requirements. The ter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shetland Islands
Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ... lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the northeast of Orkney, from mainland Scotland and west of Norway. They form part of the border between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The island's area is and the population totalled in . The islands comprise the Shetland (Scottish Parliament constituency), Shetland constituency of the Scottish Parliament. The islands' administrative centre, largest settlement and only burgh is Lerwick, which has been the capital of Shetland since 1708, before which time the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |