5 ms·
Site working again, but headline still false: Built in 1679, 165m long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpas_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpas_Tunnel
by 205guy 10y ago
Site working again, but headline still false:
Built in 1679, 165m long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpas_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malpas_Tunnel
Built in 1832, 3333m long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_de_Bourgogne https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_de_Bourgogne
Built in 1927, 7120m long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rove_Tunnel
The first two are canal tunnels not at sea level, but the last one is connected to the Mediterranean at sea level.
- dang 10y agoOk, we'll s/the world’s first/a/. That is usually a pretty good idea anyhow.
- ryanwaggoner 10y agoMaybe those would be considered boat tunnels, not ship tunnels?
- djsumdog 10y agoYea, none of those seem to match the scale of the proposal in the article.
- Doctor_Fegg 10y agoAbsolutely. In Britain the trailblazer was the 2633m Harecastle Tunnel, built by James Brindley in the 1770s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecastle_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harecastle_Tunnel . TFA describes the Norwegian tunnel as "the world's first ship tunnel of any significant size", but "significant" changes as engineering advances, and Harecastle was certainly significant at the time - contemporaries thought it an unearthly achievement. Scepticism was such that it was nicknamed an "air castle" (after "castles in the air"). It was the absolute limit of what was believed possible with tunnelling technology through such rock: the 7ft width defined the size of locks and bridges for the rest of the Grand Trunk, or Trent & Mersey, Canal. In turn, this defined the size of the English "narrowboat", the dominant inland craft for cargo carrying and, since the 1960s, pleasure boating. (In modern terms this would be called "boat" rather than "ship", but in contemporary documents it was less clear, and it seems likely that the size was chosen as a half-ship - half the width of the Mersey Flat sailing vessels, on the river with which the canal connected.) The original Harecastle Tunnel is now closed due to subsidence, but the 1820s replacement is still operational, and the rest of the Trent & Mersey Canal is fully navigable and very enjoyable: I moored a boat on it for six years. (For anyone interested in finding out about Britain's 2,500-mile network of historic canals, here's the charity that runs them: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/ https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/ )
- tim333 10y agoYeah but it's a bit of a stretch to call that sort of narrow boat a ship http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/21/article-2635127-1E0FF2DE00000578-157_634x420.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/21/article-2635127-1E...
- Retric 10y ago87 ft is vastly wider than any of those examples. It's the difference between a boat and a Ship. The general definition is a boat is small enough for a ship to carry it. Narrowboat even uses the term boat.
- Doctor_Fegg 10y agoSure. The point is that this isn't a particularly significant "first" (as the original headline claimed), it's an incremental advance in tunnelling technology. If James Brindley had been able to build Harecastle to Mersey Flat dimensions, he would have done. But tunnels have steadily got broader, deeper, longer and air-draft-ier since Harecastle and Malpas. There was no sudden moment when someone invented and built the ship tunnel. (Incidentally, the "general definition" you cite is one used by the US Naval Institute, but not universally recognised. As the former editor of a monthly news-stand boating magazine it's certainly not one I've ever used. In the UK, for example, you can legally define your small boat as a ship by signing up to the Small Ships Register.)
- sanswork 10y agohttp://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/tunnels.htm http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/tunnels.htm There are a lot of canal tunnels in the UK.