OK should have done a search on the Ships name first before posting, duhhh!
Courtesy of Wikipedia:
"The ship was the "Great Eastern", an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by Millwall Iron Works at Millwall on the River Thames, London. She was by far the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. Her length of 692ft was only surpassed in 1899 by the 705ft 17,274-gross-ton RMS Oceanic (1899),gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 701ft} 21,035-gross-ton RMS Celtic.
===Maiden voyage===
30 August 1859 was given as the date of the first voyage, but this was later put back to 6 September. The destination was Weymouth, Dorset, from which a trial trip into the Atlantic would be made. Following this the ship would sail to Holyhead, Wales, its home port for American voyages. Brunel's chosen home port was Neyland (now Milford Haven), terminus of his South Wales railway, not the LNWR terminus. --> The company had made an agreement with the Canada's Grand Trunk Railway to use Portland, Maine as its US destination, and the railway company had built a special jetty to accommodate the ship. William Harrison was appointed Captain in 1856; he drowned in 1860 while sailing from Hythe to Southampton in the ship's boat.
On 9 September the ship had passed down the Thames, and out into the English Channel, and had just passed Hastings when there was a huge explosion, the forward deck blowing apart with enough force to throw the No. 1 funnel into the air, followed by a rush of escaping steam. Scott Russell and two engineers went below and ordered the steam to be blown off and the engine speed reduced. Five stokers died from being scalded by superheated steam, while four or five others were badly injured and one had leapt overboard and had been lost. The accident was discovered to have been caused by a feedwater heater's steam exhaust having been closed, while the explosion's power had been concentrated by the ship's extremely strong bulkheads."
OK so my man (Robert Adam) was killed in this tragedy...why would it list Portland Bay as the location though if it happened off the Coast of Britain?
