How Ocean Liners Used Technology to End The Golden Age of Sail



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The ocean liner was a revolutionary vessel when first introduced in 1845 – from then, in a short 50 years or so, technology leapt forward and traditional sailing ships were left far behind. Today we’ll look at five amazing ships that changed the game – SS Atlantic, RMS Umbria, SS City of New York, RMS Campania and the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse!

With very special thanks to our friends at @TitanicHG for featuring their stunning Titanic model for the final shot!

Animated by Jack Gibson
Research assistance by Liam Sharpe
Atlantic, Umbria, New York, Campania and Kaiser Wilhelm 3D models by Lucas Gustaffson
Sailing ship “Frankenbarque” 3D model by Liam Sharpe
Music by Epidemic Sound

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Oceanliner Designs explores the design, construction, engineering and operation of history’s greatest vessels– from Titanic to Queen Mary and from the Empress of Ireland to the Lusitania. Join maritime researcher and illustrator Michael Brady as he tells the stories behind some of history’s most famous ocean liners and machines!

#documentary #ships #titanic #history #oceanliners #umbria #campania #lucania #cunard #whitestarline
0:00 Introduction
0:59 Sail to Steam
5:06 SS Atlantic 1870
11:52 RMS Umbria 1884
16:43 SS City of New York 1888
22:54 RMS Campania 1892
25:57 Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

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25 Comments

  1. Hello, and thank you for this video. This may seem a bit random — no… it WILL BE a bit random — but I immediately recognized one of the lovely pieces of background classical music as the same the played when Toto, from The Wizard of Ox, escapes from the bicycle basket, and runs back to Dorothy.

  2. Amazing video! I'm creating an accurate Great Eastern model and will present it using UE5 with Oceanology; which I believe you're using for this video. I'd be very interested to know how Jack accomplished the wakes and spray of the ships, as well as the foam trailing behind. I've tried a few techniques when doing my USS Monitor video but sadly no such luck! Again though, awesome video as always and look forward to the next one!

  3. 100% that kid deserved it. What a genuine lad, worried about his buddys before anything else. Just wanted to get outside and have some fun, bad things happen, no way he intended it or did anything to cause it, just freak. But he absolutely deserved everything you did for him. Wholesome content, i like it.

  4. Thanks for the great documentary! Unfortunately, today's cruise ships aren't nearly as sleek and beautiful like those in the past known as floating palaces! Today, they're supersized floating hotels and too bulky, top heavy! Several stories high! It's a wonder they can even be navigated and the cruise ship that was grounded off the coast of Italy several years ago was proof of that along with a drunk captain of the ship! The cruise ships today are overcrowded and come with a host of problems with too many people packed in like a can of sardines, i.e. food poisoning, missing people, etc. Of course, they pack in more people because that means more money, greed rules the day! Today's ocean liners, for the most part, are simply ugly, imho!

  5. Thank you for the sharp video. It's really quite something that the metallurgical arts moved so quickly and were adopted so swiftly that you could see such spectacular differences between designs from one to the next within a few years each. Those changes affected construction, engines, props, sanitation, everything. My guess is there were comparable advances in other materials such as rubber and petroleum. I also guess that similar jumps were made during the period in railroad technology, with stuff getting replaced so frequently.

  6. To this day, my father constantly talks about the SS Atlantic and the Titanic. Back in 2019, I took my daughter down to the little SS Atlantic museum in St Margrets Bay in Nova Scotia.

  7. I heard that the fastest passenger liner ever was the french SS Normandie, entered service in 1935 and seized by America during WW2. Then we accidentally burned it to death while trying to turn it into a troopship. Such a stupid and sad way to go, it was just partially dismantled and lit on fire.

  8. Love this video.

    Was just yesterday remarking to friends about how ocean lines chose to increase passenger enjoyment as time went on as a means of maximizing profit, whereas air lines have seemingly chosen to make the miracle of flight less and less appealing as a means of maximizing profit.

    Immediately hit the subscribe button.

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