In her second season of service in 1846, Great Britain successfully completed two round trips to New York at an acceptable speed, but was then laid up for repairs to one of her chain drums, which showed an unexpected degree of wear. Embarking on her third passage of the season to New York, her captain made a series of navigational errors that resulted in her being run hard aground in Dundrum Bay on the northeast coast of Ireland on 22 September. There was no formal inquiry but it has been recently suggested by Dr Helen Doe in her book 'SS Great Britain' that it was mainly due to the captain not having updated charts, so that he mistook the new St John's light for the Calf light on the Isle of Man.
In her second season of service in 1846, Great Britain successfully completed two round trips to New York at an acceptable speed, but was then laid up for repairs to one of her chain drums, which showed an unexpected degree of wear. Embarking on her third passage of the season to New York her captain made a series of navigational errors that resulted in her being run hard aground in Dundrum Bay on the northeast coast of Ireland on 22 September. There was no formal inquiry but it has been recently suggested by Dr Helen Doe in her book 'SS Great Britain' that it was mainly due to the captain not having updated charts so that he mistook the new St John's light for the Calf light on the Isle of Man