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| After the initial success of its first liner, the ] of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company collected materials for a sister ship, tentatively named the ''City of New York''.<ref name=gibbs /> The same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully on ''Great Western''—Isambard Brunel, Thomas Guppy, Christopher Claxton and ]—were again assembled for the new project. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation was at its height, would come to assert almost total control over design of the ship—a decision that would have far-reaching consequences for the company. | |||
| ===Switch to iron hull=== | |||
| Two chance encounters were to profoundly affect the design of ''Great Britain''. In autumn 1838, ]'s 213-foot channel packet ''Rainbow''—the largest iron-hulled ship then in service—made a stop at Bristol, where the Great Western Company was preparing to build its new ship. Brunel despatched his associates Christopher Claxton and William Patterson to make a return voyage to ] on ''Rainbow'' in order to assess the ship's capabilities. Both men returned as converts to iron-hulled technology, and Brunel scrapped his plans to build a wooden sister ship for ''Great Western'' and persuaded the company directors to build an iron-hulled ship instead. | |||
| Iron hulls had a number of advantages over the traditional wooden hull. To begin with, wood in Britain was at the time becoming more expensive, while iron was getting cheaper. Iron hulls were not subject to dry rot or woodworm like their wooden counterparts, and they were also lighter in weight and less bulky. The chief advantage of the iron hull however, was its much greater strength. The practical limit on the length of a wooden-hulled ship is about 300 feet, after which the phenomenon of "hogging"—flexing of the hull as waves pass beneath it—becomes too great. Iron hulls are far less subject to hogging, so that the potential size of an iron-hulled ship is much greater. | |||
| The company's chief engineer, Isambard Brunel convinced the directors to build an entirely different ship, an iron-hulled steamer of unusually large dimensions designed by Brunel, Thomas Guppy, Christopher Claxton and ]. Construction proceeded in a specially adapted ] in ], ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.brunel200.com/ss_great_britain.htm|title=SS Great Britain|work=Brunel 200|accessdate=2008-12-31}}</ref> | |||