The Directors adopted Mr. Brunel’s suggestions; and, at his urgent request, they appointed Captain Claxton to superintend the execution of his plans.
Captain Claxton thereupon went to Dundrum, where he took sole charge of all the subsequent operations.
The following is selected from the many letters written by Mr. Brunel to Captain Claxton at this time.
December 29, 1846.
You have failed, I think, in sinking and keeping down the fagots from that which causes nine-tenths of all failures in this world, from not doing quite enough. Two and a half hundredweight of sandbags, weighing barely one hundredweight [in water], would not of course keep quiet a large fagot of five bundles, and two and a half hundredweight of fire-bars, I should think, would only barely do. The load must always be excessive, to make sure of a thing.... I would only impress upon you one principle of action which I have always found very successful, which is to stick obstinately to one plan (until I believe it wrong), and to devote all my scheming to that one plan, and, on the same principle, to stick to one method, and push that to the utmost limits before I allow myself to wander into others; in fact, to use a simile, to stick to the one point of attack, however defended, and if the force first brought up is not sufficient, to bring ten times as much; but never to try back upon another point in the hope of finding it easier. So with the fagots—if a six-bundle fagot wont reach out of water, try a twenty-bundle one; if hundredweights wont keep it down, try tons.
The able manner in which Captain Claxton carried out Mr. Brunel’s plans, and suggested important modifications of them, is acknowledged by Mr. Brunel, in a report to the Directors, written after the successful completion of the breakwater.
February 27, 1847.
I beg to enclose Captain Claxton’s account of the proceedings at Dundrum Bay during the time that he has been engaged in forming the breakwater or protection to the ship in the manner recommended by me.
Notwithstanding the great difficulties he has had to contend with from almost incessant bad weather, with the wind blowing dead on shore nearly the whole of the month of January, and consequently preventing the tides from ebbing sufficiently out to allow of the work being properly proceeded with, and notwithstanding the occurrence of more than one storm at the most critical period of the work, he has, as I fully relied upon his doing, succeeded in so far protecting the ship, that she has been comparatively unaffected by violent seas, which, there is no doubt whatever, would otherwise have seriously damaged her. We may now calculate with tolerable certainty upon preserving her without further injury until the finer or at least more settled weather sets in.
In the work which Captain Claxton undertook, and has so successfully completed, he has been compelled to vary very materially the mode of proceeding first laid down; he has, in fact, been obliged to adapt his plans to his means of execution, and almost from day to day to devise modes of proceeding with only the experience of the past day to guide him. Numerous unforeseen difficulties have occurred, upon which he kept me daily informed; and simple as my plan might have appeared to others, it required much skill, contrivance, and unwearying perseverance to carry out so many alterations and improvements as it progressed. I had relied confidently on success when my friend Captain Claxton undertook the work, and the result has fully confirmed my expectations.