Model of the Paddle-Engines of the “Great Eastern.”
“It is incomprehensible how so eminent an engineer as Brunel should have made such a mistake as to attempt to force so huge a fabric broadside-on into the river. The costly experiment added £120,000 to the cost of the ship, and practically ruined the company.”[89]
[89] Kennedy’s “History of Steam Navigation.”
As the company had not the money to finish her, it was wound up and the ship was sold to another company, formed to take her over, the price being £160,000. It was necessary to raise another £300,000, and as the financiers would not find the money, the public was appealed to and responded to the extent of £50,000 from some of the humblest classes in the community, “without any expectation of profit, but solely that they might hear of the great ship, which they looked upon as the pride of England, being fairly afloat on the deep waters.”[90]
[90] Illustrated London News, August 13, 1859.
Her first trial trip took place in September 1859 and was marred by an explosion which killed six men, wounded several others, and wrecked the saloon. She was designed to carry 800 first-class passengers, 2000 second-class, and 800 third-class, or 10,000 troops, it being expected that the Government would utilise her as a troopship. Her first voyage was made, not to India, to which she never went, but to New York, to which she took 36 passengers. She left Southampton on June 17, 1860, and arrived on June 28, all New York turning out to see her. Her best day’s run was 333 miles, and at no time did she exceed 14¹⁄₂ knots an hour. On her homeward voyage she did rather better, as she carried 212 passengers and a large cargo in a passage of 9 days 11 hours. Her one experience as a trooper was when she took 2125 soldiers to Canada at the time of the Trent affair. On her next outward voyage she met with a gale in which her steering gear was rendered useless and she was nearly lost. In 1865 she was engaged in laying the Atlantic cables. She was employed in this kind of work for some years, off and on, until in 1886 she was acquired by an enterprising drapery and tea firm and used as a show-place and advertisement. In 1890 she was sold to be broken up, and thus disposed of in small lots at little better than old iron prices. The Great Eastern was an unlucky ship from start to finish. From the bankruptcy of Mr. Scott Russell some time before she was launched until she was left to rust on a Mersey mud-bank, almost every one concerned with her had a share of her misfortune. The one task in which she acquitted herself well was the Atlantic cable-laying.
But her significance in the history of steam-ship construction must not be under-estimated. Sir William H. White’s opinion on this point was given in his address to the Institution of Civil Engineers, in 1903, as follows; “Having recently gone again most carefully through Brunel’s notes and reports, my admiration for the remarkable grasp and foresight therein displayed has been greatly increased. In regard to the provision of ample structural strength with a minimum of weight; the increase of safety by water-tight subdivision and cellular double bottom; the design of propelling machinery and boilers, with a view to economy of coal and great endurance for long-distance steaming; the selection of forms and dimensions likely to minimise resistance and favour good behaviour at sea; and to other features of the design which need not be specified, Brunel displayed a knowledge of principles such as no other ship-designer of that time seems to have possessed, and in most of these features his intentions were realised. To him large dimensions caused no fear. ‘The use of iron,’ he remarks, ‘removes all difficulty in the construction,’ and experience of several years has proved that size in a ship is an element of speed, strength, and safety, and of greater relative economy, instead of a disadvantage, and that it is limited only by the extent of demand for freight, and by the circumstances of the ports to be frequented.”
CHAPTER X
THE BUILDING OF STEEL SHIPS
As early as 1853 mild cast steel had been suggested for shipbuilding, and in 1855 Howell introduced it as “homogeneous metal,” but shipbuilders took little notice of the suggestion for some years. Robert Napier and Sons received orders in 1858 for some high-pressure boilers and marine machinery where lightness combined with strength was of the utmost importance, and it was proposed to use “homogeneous metal” for the one and puddled steel for the other instead of the wrought iron which was ordinarily employed. Steel as then made was very brittle and many attempts were made to remedy this defect. David Kirkaldy made a series of important experiments which lasted three and a half years and attracted the attention of the Scottish Shipbuilders’ Association. His principal service was the discovery and placing on record of the effects of oil hardening upon the properties of steel.