Giant Floating Victorian Drydock | Hacker News Reader

Giant Floating Victorian Drydock

mastermariners.org.au

40 pointsdtj112324 comments

The rigging on the surrounding ships is nonsensical. AI generated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Admiralty_floating_doc...

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/HMS_Psyc...

It looks like a (modern or old) version of this print: "The Bermuda Floating Dock, In Tow of H.M.Ss Warrior and Black Prince and Terrible astern Leaving Porto Santo for their Voyage across the Atlantic, July 4th 1869"

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/maritime-history/library-archi...

I don’t get it. It sounds like you are claiming the article image is not AI slop, but rather an old print. But then you link to something that isn’t even remotely like the article image.

It was common for paintings/etchings to be made based on existing paintings in the 19th century - I'm guessing the painting link I gave was probably close to an original or source.

There's lots of similar images on the internet, this image on Alamy claims to scanned from a Victorian mechanical‑engineering book of the 1880s

https://www.alamy.com/an-old-engraving-showing-the-british-f...

It looks like AI generated based on https://nmb.bm/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/IMG_011054-1536x10... for what it’s worth. Would have preferred to see the original though.

/e: this is likely not the illustration you were referring to I realize now.

Yup, this is so much better!

There was a time in the early steamship days where they carried both engines and sails. If that's what you object to it's very easy to verify this with historical records.

If something else, sure maybe.

Something else. Rigging is the ropes holding the masts and controlling the sails. There's a bunch of weirdness going on with that. Someone with an interest in sail boats will spot it easily.

Looks pretty normal to me for ships of that era. Wooden masts and natural cordage means you need a lot of rigging to keep things standing.

Comparing these rigs to modern ones with aluminum masts and stainless wire or dyneema rope is very apples to oranges.

Even more so since 97% of modern boats have Bermudan rigs (triangle sails) where as these ships have square sails.

Maybe you want to take another look? It’s not subtle.

Not to mention the presence of two small boats which are not the type you'd want to cross an ocean in.

There's a couple of great images in this article:

https://nmb.bm/history/look-down-look-down/

https://www.google.com/maps/place/32°18'22.7"N+64°48'59.9"W

Street view nearby: https://www.google.com/maps/place/32%C2%B018'22.7%22N+64%C2%...

It hadn't occurred to me that the wreck would still be visible. This is amazing.

This photo looks so odd: https://nmb.bm/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/IMG_011057-1536x13...

Were cameras at the time really that good already? Or was it likely restored with some creative license?

Yes, as long as you were happy to wait 30s for an exposure (on tripod), by 1850 (most of those photos were > 15 years later than that) there were many photos of good quality.

Look at photos of Crystal Palace in 1851 for example.

This should be the link.

It really should be.

Agreed

This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

The US Navy's WW II floating drydocks in the Pacific were wild - whole battleships and aircraft carriers lifted up, fixed, and sent back out.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/the-massive-fl...

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