MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

SS Great Britain, a Victorian lasting monument

THE world's first passenger steamship, the SS Great Britain, is reaching the final stages of an £11.3 million restoration that is transforming her from a rusting hulk into a lasting monument to Victorian enterprise.

The SS Great Britain, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched in 1843, had been languishing in a dry dock in Bristol since being recovered from a beach in the Falkland Islands in 1970. Rust was eating through her wrought-iron flanks and even the restoration work undertaken since her rescue was reaching the end of its life.

A study by marine engineers concluded that she needed more than a coat of paint to survive another hundred years. Without radical treatment, the rust would weaken the ship and she would collapse under her own weight.

The solution, developed with the help of scientists at Cardiff University, was to dry her out with giant dehumidifiers. The project marks the first time that the technique has been tried on such a scale. The rest of the ship, including the cabins and the grand salon, has been restored during the five-year project, which has been paid for with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Matthew Tanner, the director of the SS Great Britain Trust, which owns the ship, is confident that the dry air will arrest corrosion. He said: "Everything above the waterline has been restored to look as it did when she was launched by Prince Albert 162 years ago, but below the waterline we have left her relatively untouched so visitors can see her as she really is."

The source of much of the moisture that threatened to finish off the vessel was the paying public. Perspiration condensed on the hull and reacted with the salt absorbed over time by the iron plates. The traditional solution of scraping and repainting had left the hull perilously thin in places, but scientists found that if they could remove nearly all of the moisture from the air, the process of corrosion could be stopped almost completely.

The campaign to save the ship began with a letter to The Times in 1967. Three years later she was towed to Bristol, where she was greeted by more than 200,000 people. The trust has chosen July 19, the date of her original launch and her return, as the date of the relaunch. (The Times On Line).-