The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer

by Isambard Brunel

In navigating a small vessel, a man has to study the appearance of the weather, the direction of the wind, and that of the seas; to consider the probabilities of change; to vary his course more or less with reference to any of these causes, and according not only to the then state of all these operating causes, but also with reference to the probabilities of change; and with their consideration his mind is principally occupied, and it is in the exercise of judgment and foresight in these points that he shows his skill.

Steam navigation, and the gradual increase in the size of vessels, have no doubt materially modified this, but much still remains to occupy the mind of the commander of a steamer, with which not only we shall have nothing to do, but too much attention to which, from previous habits, would divert his attention from that which, under the different circumstances, will become much more important.

In the same manner, in manœuvring such a vessel in harbour, the ordinary modes would be totally inapplicable; whereas, by entirely discarding all previous practices, and keeping in his mind and making use of the peculiar powers which are at command in this vessel, and judiciously attending to the immense effect of the vis inertiæ, or momentum of such a mass, so far beyond that of anything now afloat that it becomes a totally new influence, this machine may be managed by a skilful man with a facility which is not attainable with small craft; while such a mass would be destruction to itself or to anything that comes in contact with it, if treated at all in the same manner as even the largest steamers are now handled.

Another peculiarity to be attended to in the management of this mighty mass is that by no possibility must she be allowed to touch the ground.

Our ship will be found, I believe, if tried, to possess unusual strength: no combination of circumstances within the range of ordinary probabilities can cause such damage to her as to sink her, even if she were to be run on sharp rocks with deep water around; and I believe she might remain for months aground, exposed to the heaviest seas without serious damage. The lives of the passengers, and even the cargo generally, will be safe, almost perfectly safe, and so far she will be very different from and very superior to any vessel now afloat; but there will also be another great difference, although she may remain safely aground, she will probably remain so for a long time.

If she were to ground at high water or where there is a little tide, and when she happens to be rather light of coal, and should take in any water so as to deepen her, no ordinary appliances in the power of the crew will get her off, or, at all events, not without great loss of time, and at very heavy sacrifices. Such an event in the first year of her career would probably ruin our Company, as the grounding of the ‘Great Britain’ did the Great Western Steam-Ship Company, although it proved the good qualities of that ship, and thus advanced iron ship-building. A sailor will no doubt receive with disgust and as an insult the suggestion of the possibility of his running his ship ashore. We cannot afford, however, to rest contented with this expression of feeling, natural and praiseworthy as it may be: our circumstances are totally different; and that which is considered certainly as a serious evil, but still only an evil more or less serious, would be to us fatal; it is no longer a question of degree of injury—it is death. I have had some costly experience; I have had to do with many steamers—several remarkable for their size and their value, according to the ideas of the time, and two of them each in their day considered Leviathans, more wondered at than even ours, and exciting much more anxiety on the part of their promoters, and there was as much care taken in the selection of commanders as I ask you to take now; nevertheless both of these, to the ruin of the Company in one case, and almost every other steamer I have had anything to do with, has not merely touched, but been aground. Not a season hardly passes without a case of even a Queen’s ship going ashore, although navigated by men educated for the purpose, with the advantage of every appliance hitherto thought necessary and sufficient, and with fearful responsibility attached to them. All these are published cases known to the world; and if the log books of all the steamers were searched, I believe the result would be a list in which the ships that had not been aground would form the exceptions, and, in the majority of cases, the blunder is so gross, that the most far-fetched excuses of errors of compass and unknown currents, although in well-known channels, are obliged to be invented.

The real explanation is a simple one. Ships are navigated with far too reckless a confidence in the mere personal instinct and skill of those in command, and in their ability to get out of a scrape in time. Methodical systems and mechanical means of ensuring accuracy are far too much neglected, or rather have not kept pace at all with the great improvements in speed and the power of locomotion which science has introduced, whether in the construction of steam vessels or even of sailing ships, and which the advance of the day now calls for. There are no means at present used of taking soundings worth having while a ship is going fast through the water, or in time to be of any use if the soundings shoal rapidly; the trouble is so great and the operation so slow that it is not resorted to sufficiently often. The steering by compass is so rough and so coarse, that no real accuracy is attained. Good observations to determine position are taken at too long intervals of distance run, and consequently are subject to be interrupted for too long a period by what is called and supposed to be continual bad weather; although it would rarely happen, if persons were continually on the watch, who had nothing else to do or to think of, that twenty-four hours would pass without some glimpses of a star or of the sun. Thus with a speed of ten or fifteen knots, and cloudy weather, and, above all, with that unfortunate confidence of seamen to which I have referred, there is never any certainty just at the time when it is really required. No doubt, skilful seamen do generally arrive at an astonishing approximation in their estimates, and the results on the average are most successful, and remarkable proofs of the skill brought into action. But the instrumental means of attaining accuracy are lamentably in rear of the improvements that have been made in the means of locomotion, and have not at all kept pace with the vast increase of capital embarked in each individual case.

All these deficiencies are, however, easily remedied; the means do exist, or can be devised, and might be applied if we insisted on their application. We have seen numerous instances where the difficulties are admitted and grappled with systematically, and with what patience and skill a fleet has been piloted up unknown rivers full of shoals in China, and through intricate channels with covered rocks in the Baltic. In our case, the object to be attained is a vital one to us; and what I most dread is the confidence of our commander resulting from his previous experience preventing his appreciating the peculiarities of the case, and applying that greatly increased amount of method and system which is essential to change that, which is now rendered only highly probable by the skill of man, into mechanical certainty. The man who takes charge of such a machine, in which is embarked so large a capital, must have a mind capable of setting aside, without forgetting, all his previous experience and habits, and must be prepared to commence as an observer of new facts, and seize rapidly the results. A man of sense and observation, with a good mechanical head, and with decision and courage, would succeed without much previous nautical knowledge; but, unquestionably, a man familiar with all that is going on around would be much more competent, provided he does not allow his habits derived from former experience to induce him to neglect any of the new means of information in his power, to all which his former knowledge should be made subservient.

If much has to be unlearnt, or rather carefully set aside for the time, as generally inapplicable in its present shape, there is also much to be learnt in the navigation of such a vessel; and one of the most essential qualifications of the commander would be a belief in his want of experience, and a readiness to see the novelty of his position, and a cautious and sound but quick perception of the new and powerful influences and new effects of those same causes with which he may have been familiar under very different circumstances.

The great mass and size of this vessel must necessarily render it so much less affected by the ordinary disturbing causes of wind and sea, that, practically, little attention ought to be paid to these, at least not as expecting the ordinary results; but other effects may be produced which must be carefully studied and learnt in the early voyages, so that they may be met and counteracted as they have been by experienced men under the present system. Thus, as an example of this class of effects to which I would refer, there is reason to believe that this vessel, although apparently unaffected by a wind on the beam, or a cross sea, which would be very noticeable even with the largest of the present steamers, would nevertheless have a steady and rather strong tendency to come up to the wind. A certain direction of a cross sea is not unlikely to produce a contrary effect. It is quite possible also that the apparent lee-way, or the deviation of the axis (or keel) of the ship from the line of the course, will be greater with the wind on the beam than with smaller vessels, although the actual drift or lee-way may be less; and all these effects will result from her great length (unless counteracted by causes I do not now foresee), and will probably be totally different in degree from any similar effects now felt. These effects must be carefully studied, and with a mind prepared to consider them as new, for they will be new and distinct from anything now experienced. In the same manner, and to a much greater degree, the effects of the speed which we must hope to attain will upset all the usual methods of determining accurately the position and the course of the vessel, and still more the precautions to be taken in approaching land. A 24 hours’ run, at 20 miles per hour, without a good observation, and with a possible error of estimate, or a doubt, at all events, of the exact effect of the set of currents, or of the speed of the ship through the water, or of the precise amount of lee-way, may easily make an error of 20 or 30 miles in position at the end of the day’s run.