Nevertheless, paddle-boats have their advantages. They need less water to work in, are started more easily, and stopped sooner. Further, it is said they are less liable to cause sea-sickness, as they do not roll so much. In a word, the difference seems to be this: paddle vessels are better suited as passenger boats on the shallower waters; screw vessels for deep sea and long distance voyages, though whether the adoption of twin-screws,—which it appears need not be immersed so deeply in the water as one screw,—will bring screw vessels into use on shallower waters remains to be seen.
But when the Great Britain was being built the greater efficiency of the screw-propeller for ocean voyages was not widely understood. She was a fine vessel, over 320 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 32½ feet deep. Her screw was successful; but on her fourth voyage to New York she became stranded in Dundrum Bay, and lay aground for nearly a year.
Incidentally, however, this catastrophe seems to have given great impetus to iron shipbuilding; for after being floated, she was discovered to have suffered but comparatively slight damage. She was seen in dock by many persons interested in shipping, and they became impressed with the practicability and usefulness of iron for shipbuilding.
Unfortunate Great Britain! She passed through many vicissitudes. Her owners got into difficulties, and after some alterations, she ran to Australia, and at length she wheezed her way to the Falkland Islands, where, it is said, she served as a hulk—a sorry end to a successful beginning.
The engines of the early screw vessels appear to have very much resembled those for paddle-wheels ships. Thus the Rattler, engined by Messrs. Maudslay for the Admiralty about the year 1841, had upright cylinders, with a crank-shaft overhead and wheels to give speed to the screw.
In the meantime, however, the commercial difficulty of transatlantic steam traffic was being solved. The something lacking had been supplied. What was it?
CHAPTER IV.
THE OCEAN RACE.
“This is the very opportunity I have been wanting!”