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April 2013 www.sname.org/sname/mt performance, this was a story that had it all: focus on values (defend the cup), sensitivity to operations (a awless crew), and imagination. Great Eastern Great Eastern was a ship conceived and largely designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the worlds foremost engineers in the mid 1800s. e ships initial purpose was to transport emigrants from England to the United States with a passenger capacity of approximately 4,000 people. e ship had the endurance to travel around the world without refueling. Great Eastern was 211 m in length when launched in 1858. It was not until 1899 that Great Eastern lost the title of longest ves-sel to RMS Oceanic , and not until 1901 that she lost the title of largest gross tonnage ves- sel to RMS Celtic.e vessel construction was a tale of ts, starts, bankruptcy, delays, and a dreadful series of attempts to launch the partially- completed vessel. e maiden voyage was marred by an explosion that killed several people. It certainly seems as though each voyage was characterized by one thing or another, such as grounding, losing the rud- der, or just plain disappointing numbers of passenger or cargo. Her only real success was being converted to a cable layer and lay- ing the rst transatlantic cable. Great Eastern was a failure of risk and high performance even though the tech- nical design of the ship was sufficient that she might have worked out well if an appropriate business were found or devel- oped. e vessel was a success in that she floated, withstood numerous accidents and incidents, and performed some work including cable laying. The vessel was a study of poor risk leadership in areas of organization leadership, construction and launching, nding constructive employ- ment, and occasionally sketchy operation. RMS Titanic e passenger vessel RMS Titanic was the worlds largest ship when launched in 1911. The ship sank after striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to New York. RMS Titanic is an iconic vessel asso- ciated with one of the most well-known maritime tragedies. The vessel certainly was an engineering marvel. But the acci- dent overwhelmed Titanic and her response capability. The ship had more lifesaving - D F N ) L V K H U 3 U H V L G H Q W &