The excitement caused by her arrival at Blackwall was very great. Thousands of persons flocked to see her, and she was honoured by a visit from Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert.
She left Liverpool on her first voyage on August 26, and arrived at New York on September 10, having made the passage out in fourteen days and twenty-one hours. She made her return passage in fifteen days and a half.
She started again in October, taking sixteen days and a half across. On her homeward passage, she broke her screw, and got home under canvas after eighteen days of rough weather which fully tested her sailing qualities.
The experience of these voyages showed that the supply of steam from the boilers was defective; the necessary alterations were carried out during the winter months, and the ship was fitted with a new screw.
In the beginning of 1846, everything seemed to promise well for the success of the ‘Great Britain.’ She started on May 9, with her full complement of passengers and cargo, but again an accident happened, which prevented this passage from affording a trial of her steaming power. On May 13, the guard of the after air-pump broke; but up to that time her speed had averaged eleven and three-quarters knots.
She returned from New York in thirteen days and six hours, against adverse winds for ten days, with a speed varying from eight and a half to twelve knots. On one day of her voyage, June 13, she ran 330 knots in the twenty-four hours, or nearly sixteen statute miles an hour. This was said to have been the quickest passage which had, up to that time, been made under similar circumstances of wind and weather.
She left Liverpool again at the beginning of July, and arrived at New York in thirteen days and eight hours, or, deducting stoppages, in twelve days and eleven hours—the shortest passage then and for some time afterwards recorded. Her homeward passage was accomplished in thirteen days, including a stoppage of eighteen hours to repair the driving chains which had been damaged.
She started again from Liverpool on her outward voyage on the morning of September 22, 1846, having on board 180 passengers (a larger number than had ever before started to cross the Atlantic in a steamer), and a considerable quantity of freight. A few hours after her departure, and at a time when it was supposed that she was rounding the Isle of Man, the ship ran ashore, and all immediate efforts to get her off were unavailing. When daylight came, the captain found, to his surprise, that she was in Dundrum Bay, on the north-east coast of Ireland. The passengers were landed safely when the tide ebbed.
Captain Claxton, the managing Director of the Company, went at once to the ship. He found her lying at the bottom of a deep and extensive bay; the ground on which she rested had an upper surface of sand, but underneath this were numerous detached rocks. The ship had settled down upon two of them, and had knocked holes in her bottom. Her head lay NW., leaving her stern and port quarter exposed to a heavy sea, which, at Dundrum, always accompanies southerly gales.
When Captain Claxton got to the ship, he made arrangements for trying to get her off at the next spring tides, which were on the following Monday (September 28); but on the Sunday, a gale of wind from the southward sprung up, and at the night flood-tide the water broke over her; nothing remained to be done but to drive the ship higher up the beach into a position of greater safety. Sails were therefore set, and she was driven forward a considerable distance.