“In the construction of the Great Britain, the same care which had been spent in securing longitudinal strength in the wooden hull of the Great Western was now given to the suitable distribution of the metal.”
A balanced rudder and bilge keels were parts of her original construction, and an unusual method of lapping the plates was used. “Apart from their size, the design of the engines of the Great Britain necessarily presented many peculiarities. The boilers, which were 6 in number, were placed touching each other, so as to form one large boiler about 33 feet square, divided by one transverse and two longitudinal partitions.
“It would seem that the boiler was worked with a pressure of about 8 pounds on the square inch.
“The main shaft of the engine had a crank at either end of it, and was made hollow; a stream of water being kept running through it, so as to prevent heating in the bearings. An important part in the design was the method by which motion was transmitted from the engine-shaft to the screw-shaft, for the screw was arranged to go three revolutions to each revolution of the engines. Where the engines do not drive the screw directly, this is now universally effected by means of toothed gearing; but when the engines of the Great Britain were made, it was thought that this arrangement would be too jarring and noisy. After much consideration, chains were used, working round different-sized drums, with notches in them, into which fitted projections on the chains.”
On July 10, 1843, this (for the time) great ship was floated out of dock; but it was not until January 23, 1845, that she left Bristol for London, making on her voyage an average of 121⁄3 knots an hour. She left Liverpool for New York on August 26th, and arrived on September 10th, having made the passage out in 14 days and 21 hours; she returned in 151⁄2 days. During the next winter, after one more voyage to New York, alterations were made, to give a better supply of steam, and a new screw was fitted. She made two voyages to New York in 1846; and on September 22d she left Liverpool on a third, but overran her reckoning and stranded in Dundrum Bay, on the northeast coast of Ireland, when it was supposed she was only rounding the Isle of Man. This unfortunate event completed the ruin of the company, already in financial straits through the competition of the Cunard line; and the ship after her rescue, effected August 27, 1847, almost a year after grounding, was “sold to Messrs. Gibbs, Bright & Co., of Liverpool, by whom she was repaired and fitted with auxiliary engines of 500 nominal horse-power. On a general survey being made it was found that she had not suffered any alteration of form, nor was she at all strained. She was taken out of dock in October, 1851, and since that time she has made regular voyages between Liverpool and Australia.”
These last few lines appear in the “Life of Brunel,” published in 1870. But she was later changed into a sailing-ship, and only in 1886 stranded again at the Falkland Islands. She was floated; but being badly injured, was sold to serve as a hulk, and there no doubt will be passed the last days of what may be regarded one of the famous ships of the world. She was, for the time, as bold a conception as was her great designer’s later venture, the Great Eastern.
The acceptance by the English Government of the Cunard company’s bid for the contract for carrying the mails to America resulted in putting afloat, in 1840, the Acadia, Britannia, Columbia, and Caledonia. The first vessels of the Cunard line were all wooden paddle-wheel steamers, with engines by Napier, of Glasgow, of the usual side-lever class; the return-flue boilers and jet-condensers were used, the latter holding their place for many years to come, though surface condensation had already appeared as an experiment. The company was to carry the mails fortnightly between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, regular sailings to be adhered to, and four vessels to be employed, for the sum of £81,000 ($400,000) per annum. The contract was made for seven years, but was continued from time to time for forty-six—no break occurring in this nearly half-century’s service, when the Umbria—November 4, 1886—was the first ship in the history of the company to leave Liverpool on the regular day of sailing for America without mails. This break, however, was but momentary, and the line almost at once resumed its ancient duty.
The Britannia was the first of the fleet to sail; and, strange to say (from the usual seaman’s point of view), Friday, July 4, 1840, was the day selected. She arrived at Boston in 14 days and 8 hours, a very successful passage for the time.
It must have required considerable moral courage in the projectors to inaugurate such an undertaking on a day of the week which has been so long on the black-list of sailor superstition, notwithstanding it had the advantage of being the anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence. The success of this line ought certainly to rehabilitate Friday to a position of equality among the more fortunate days, though it will be observed that none of the transatlantic lines have yet selected it as a day of sailing.
The Britannia, which was representative of the quartette, was of the following dimensions: Length of keel and fore rake, 207 ft.; breadth of beam, 34 ft. 2 in.; depth of hold, 22 ft. 4 in.; mean draught, 16 ft. 10 in.; displacement, 2,050 tons; diameter of cylinder, 721⁄2 in.; length of stroke, 82 in.; number of boilers, 4; pressure carried, 9 lbs. per sq. in.; number of furnaces, 12; fire-grate area, 222 ft.; indicated horse-power, 740; coal consumption per indicated horse-power per hour, 5.1 lbs.; coal consumption per day, 38 tons; bunker capacity, 640 tons; cargo capacity, 225 tons; cabin passengers carried, 90; average speed, 8.5 knots.