September 1899 - The world's largest ship

The Engineer of the late 19th century was full of stories of giant ships, but it reserved special acclaim for the RMS Oceanic, which at  705 ft long and 17,272 tons, was for a time, the largest ship in the world.

Built in Glasgow by Harland and Wolf and designed by Thomas Ismay - founder of the White Star Line - the ship’s maiden voyage saw it travel down the coast to Liverpool’s Canada Graving dock. The Engineer was there to report on its arrival.

‘The presence of the Oceanic in the Canada graving dock - a view of which we herewith present - forms a noteworthy and unique circumstance in the annals of shipping and docks; being nothing less that the largest vessel in the world within the largest and newest graving dock in the world.’

Before describing the ship, The Engineer marvelled briefly at the graving dock itself, which had been built to accommodate the vessel so that its vast hull could be cleaned and painted.  ‘It is 925ft in length, has an entrance width of 94 ft and its complement  of 80,000 tons of water can be pumped out in one hour and forty minutes.’