By Josh Weizel   There was once a Great Ship that had been built in Rhode Island and was bought by the early settlers of New Haven. The ship was to sail to England and would have carried one hundred fifty tons of cargo to include everything from lumber, peas, wheat, and beaver skins. The successful voyage of the Great Ship was critical to New Haven's economic success.     In January 1646, the Great Ship set sail for England with about one hundred crew members and George Lamberton as its captain. Imagine the colonists hoping that the Great Ship would make New Haven a commercial success, and equally fearing that the dangers of North Atlantic doom the vessel's fate.  That winter, Massachusetts Governor John Winthrop recorded that New Haven harbor was frozen over by ice and a ship passage had to be cut for three miles for the vessel's departure. According to the scholar Patrick Geoffrey, the mid-seventeenth century would see longer winters and more extre...