Sirius was a fairly small ship, as it was not intended to be transatlantic. However, it was to prove that the future of ocean transportation belonged to steamships. When the ship began to run out of coal on her way to New York, the captain refused to set her sails, even though the ship had them. To save coal they burned freight, barrels of resin. 1)
Gough is a volcanic island in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It belongs to the United Kingdom, and the only inhabitants are employees of a weather station that South Africa has maintained continuously on the island since 1956. The area occupied by the station belongs administratively to South Africa and is part of the city of Cape Town. Scientists studying the house mouse population on Gough have shown that the rodents can reach a size three times larger than typical and are aggressive predators, attacking seabird chicks. 2)
The first official telegram sent over the transatlantic cable on 16.08.1858 was Queen Victoria's congratulations to US President James Buchanan. The cable was destroyed a month later when it was overloaded trying to use too much voltage. The core of the cable consisted of seven copper wires that were insulated with three layers of gutta-percha. These, in turn, were wrapped with eighteen strips of tarred hemp, and the whole was twisted into a closed spiral. The entire structure weighed approximately one ton per nautical mile. 3)
The informal title of Blue Riband holder went to the liner, i.e. a ship sailing regularly, which made the fastest route from Europe to North America or vice versa, both routes being considered separately. The first steamer Sirius in 1838 took 18 days 14 hours 22 minutes. The last SS United States did it in 3 days 10 hours 40 minutes. 4)
The Cape Verde Islands lie to the west of Africa and are also surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. 5)