I was given a book on Hull and the East Coast recently and I had never heard of this one!
Certainly Bessember whom the ship was named after was a designer ahead of his time. Forget the odd set up of paddle wheels, it had rudders at both ends and pointed bows at both ends, so it could enter and leave port without wasting time turning about - now how that idea caught on with the cross channel ferries!
The problem with the ship though was it was vastly underpowered which made manouvering at low speeds impossible and it had quite a few accidents. It main claim to fame though was the passenger saloon which was on a pivot using hydraulics to keep it level no matter what angle the ship rolled to. This came about because of the inventors penchant for seasickness if he even stood on a ships pier! Because of the numerous accidents it had the saloon was never even demonstrated in use and was permanently fixed.
The ship because of its disastrous handling capability was eventually sold to new owners who insisted as part of the sale, that the ship was cut in half and a proper stern added to each half, effectively giving him two ships for the price of one
Now what a model this would make!