At 693 feet long, 120 feet wide and weighing over 18,900 tons, the SS "Great Eastern" was the largest ship built at the time, capable of transporting 4,000 passengers from Britain to Australia without having to refuel along the way. Even when she was finally broken up for scraps in 1888, she was still the largest ship in the world. Her record was not broken till the Edwardian era with super liners like the "Lusitania" in 1907, the "Titanic" in 1912. Yet despite being a remarkable feat of engineering, the "Great Eastern" became more and more of a white elephant as smaller and faster ships were in greater demand. Nevertheless, she gained a new lease of life when she was chartered to lay telegraphic cables across the Atlantic, and then to India. Her size and range made her ideally suited for the task.