May 4, 1847.
You have heard from time to time from Captain Claxton of the result of the means adopted by him for protecting the ‘Great Britain’ from the effects of the sea, and which, I am happy to say, have been quite successful; and you will have heard also generally from him of the steps which we have since taken, preparatory to getting off the ship.
I will now explain to you the object I have kept in view in these preparations, and the course I should now advise you to follow.
After completing the works for the protection of the ship, and before determining upon any mode to be recommended to you for getting her off, I thought it would be desirable to lighten her of all that could be easily removed, and to ascertain how much of the vessel could be made water-tight, and what extent of buoyancy could be obtained in the vessel herself, as, in my opinion, upon our success in this would depend altogether the practicability of lifting the ship by camels. If no great extent of buoyancy could have been obtained, I should certainly have recommended lifting the vessel by mechanical means, as I do not consider that, with the draft of water which could be calculated upon around her on ordinary tides, sufficient floating power by camels could be obtained in an easy practicable manner. It was also quite possible that we might succeed in making the vessel alone sufficiently buoyant to lift high enough on the spring tides; and by shifting her position, or by other means, to maintain the lift thus got, to allow of getting under her bottom to repair her.
By great exertion nearly the whole of the compartments forward and aft of the engine space, and part of the coal bunkers, have been made tight; and if the tides had ebbed as low as usual, the other bunkers and the boilers, fireplace and flues, would also have been made water-tight by these last springs.
Unfortunately, from the direction of the wind and other causes, these tides have neither ebbed nor flowed to their full extent; still, the vessel has been lifted, and some of this lift has been maintained, and if we were fortunate, it is evidently quite possible that our utmost expectations might be realized, and possibly the vessel might be lifted sufficiently to be made tight without any external assistance. This, however, would be too much to calculate upon, and the weight to be lifted having been reduced to one-half what it was, and being capable of still further reduction, the operation of lifting by camels becomes a much more practicable undertaking.
I should now therefore recommend that application be made to some parties who have had the most experience in such work, to lay their proposals before the Directors; and that in the meantime we should continue to make every effort to add to the buoyancy of the ship....
I believe that, in such a case, quiet, sober consideration, assisted by experience, and by careful examination of all the circumstances on the spot, will be infinitely more valuable than the most ingenious and brilliant schemes. And I believe we are most likely to obtain these conditions by calling in a man like Mr. Bremner, and leaving him to confer with Captain Claxton, and that he should have the benefit of our advice and assistance, and then lay his plans and proposals before the Directors.
Mr. Bremner and his son, assisted by Captain Claxton, made preparations for releasing the ship. The system followed was that sketched out by Mr. Brunel—namely, that of lifting the ship by mechanical arrangements, and then making good the leaks. The difficulties they had to contend with are graphically described in the reports which were sent almost daily by Captain Claxton to Mr. Brunel, and which were afterwards printed by the Directors at Mr. Brunel’s suggestion.[134]
The principal leak was stopped, and the ship’s head raised 8 feet 7 inches by ramming wedges and stones under her at high water. At last, on August 27, the ship was floated, and Captain Claxton wrote to Mr. Brunel:—