Man on the Ocean: A Book about Boats and Ships

by R. M. Ballantyne

The passenger accommodation in the Great Eastern is very extensive—namely, 800 first-class, from 2000 to 4000 second-class, and about 1200 third-class passengers; or if troops alone were taken, it could accommodate 10,000 men.

The saloons are fitted up in the most elaborate and costly manner. The chief saloon is magnificently furnished. It is said that the mirrors, gilding, carpeting, and silk curtains for this apartment alone cost 3000 pounds. In the berths, of course, no attempt is made at costly decoration of this kind, though the fittings are good and sufficiently luxurious. The berths are arranged in three classes: those for parties of six or eight, and these are large rooms; those for parties of four; and the rest in the usual style of double cabins. All are very roomy, as cabins go—very lofty, well lit, and those on the outer sides exceedingly well ventilated. On the lower deck the berths are even larger, loftier, and more commodious than those on the upper. Both the berths and saloons here are in fact almost unnecessarily high, having very nearly fifteen feet in the clear. The kitchens, pantries, and sculleries are all on the same extensive scale, and fitted with all the large culinary requisites of first-class hotels. The ice-house holds upwards of 100 tons of ice; and the lofty wine-vaults—for such in fact they are—contain wine enough to form a good freight for an Oporto trader.

Miscellanea.—In addition to the boats of the Great Eastern (twenty in number), she carries two small screw-steamers, each 100 feet long, 16 feet broad, 120 tons burden, and 40 horse-power, suspended aft of the paddle-boxes.

As the captain’s voice could not be heard half-way to the bow, even with the aid of the ancient speaking-trumpet, that instrument is supplanted by semaphore signals by day, and coloured lamps by night; the electric telegraph is also used in connection with the engine-rooms. There are ten anchors, four of them being Trotman’s patent, weighing seven tons each. The cables are each 400 fathoms long, and their united weight is 100 tons. The tonnage of the Great Eastern is 18,500 tons register, and 22,500 tons builders’ measurement. The crew at first consisted of thirteen officers, seventeen engineers, a sailing-master, and a purser, four hundred men, and two or three surgeons, all under the command of the late Captain W. Harrison, (formerly of the Cunard line).

The launch of this leviathan was a most formidable undertaking, and was accomplished by means of powerful hydraulic rams, which propelled the vessel down the launching “ways.” The ship rested on two gigantic cradles, and was forced sideways down the inclined plane, until she floated on the river. By a complication of ingenious contrivances the great ship was regulated in her descent so as to proceed slowly and regularly down the ways. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to launch her, and several of the hydraulic rams broke down ere she floated on the bosom of Old Father Thames; and the cost of this operation alone is said to have been nearly 100,000 pounds.

The trial of the engines, both screw and paddle, took place for the first time on the 8th of August 1859, when the completion of the vessel was celebrated by a banquet on board. The first movement of the gigantic cranks and cylinders of the paddle engines was made precisely at half-past one, when the great masses slowly rose and fell as noiselessly as the engines of a Greenwich boat, but exerting in their revolutions what seemed to be an almost irresistible power. There was no noise, no vibration, nor the slightest sign of heating. The tremendous frame of ironwork sprang at once into life and motion, with as much ease as if every rod and crank had been worked for the last ten years.

The trial trip of the Great Eastern was an event that excited intense interest all over the kingdom. For the first time, she cast off her moorings on Wednesday morning, (the 7th September), and reached the Nore on Thursday, where she anchored for the night before proceeding to sea. On Friday morning, at ten minutes past nine, she started on her first salt-water voyage. A conviction of the extreme steadiness of the vessel must speedily have seized everyone on board. There was no perceptible motion of any kind. The giant ship was speedily surrounded by yachts, tugs, fishing-smacks, and, indeed, by a representative of almost every kind of vessel which is prevalent at the Nore. These accompanied her as far on her way as their limited sailing powers would permit. Although there were sharp squalls and a chopping sea nearly all through the trip, not the slightest inconvenience was felt by any of the visitors, not even among the fairer portion of the passengers. The morning, which was rather fine at starting, suddenly became clouded, and the shifting squalls increased in violence. Though the squally state of the weather damped the pleasure of all on board, yet it afforded an opportunity of trying the properties of the ship, now under paddle as well as screw; and it was the wish of Mr Scott Russell and all on board to meet a good gale of wind. At a moderate computation, the distance from the deck to the water could not be much less than forty feet, while the vessel is nearly seven hundred feet long. This area would, of course, present an enormous surface to the force of the wind, and formed the subject of considerable discussion as to the effect it would have on her sea-going qualities. The ship was as stiff and steady as though she still remained on her cradles in the Isle of Dogs, and her course was as calm and true as though she were on a lake without a capful of wind.

It is said that at one portion of the voyage she steamed nineteen miles an hour.

The explosion.—All went well till the ship had passed Folkestone. About half-past five o’clock, while the majority of the passengers were on deck, and a few gentlemen only remained in the dining saloon, a tremendous explosion occurred, and in an instant showers of broken glass, and fragments of wood and iron, came crashing through the skylight. Those in the cabin rushed on deck. The ship was still pressing onward; at either end all was still and deserted, while in the centre all was smoke, fire, vapour, and confusion. The great funnel, of eight tons weight, had been shot up as if from a mortar, and fell on the deck broken in two pieces. The whole centre of the ship seemed to be only one vast chasm, and from it were belching up steam, dust, and something that looked like incipient conflagration. Captain Harrison acted nobly on this terrible occasion. He had been standing on the bridge overhead, looking into the binnacle, and the moment he heard the report, and whilst the destructive shower was still falling fast, he jumped upon the deck, and ordered an immediate descent to the ladies’ saloon, in the firm conviction that they were all there as on the previous evening. But many of the men were panic-stricken, and had already shrunk away from the explosion. A foolish passenger had raised a cry of “The boats,” and, assisted by some of the sailors, was madly attempting to let them down. In one moment all would have been lost; for the rush to the boats would have been general, and hundreds been drowned, whilst the noble ship would have been left to certain destruction. But the voice of the captain was heard like a trumpet, calling out, “Men, to your duty; officers, to your posts; give me a rope, and let six men follow me!” The effect of this short address was electric. In an instant he had slid down the rope into the saloon, followed by his brave boatswain Hawkins, and six volunteers were not long wanted for the forlorn hope. One after another he dashed open the gilded panels; but the splendid apartment had, strange to say, only two inhabitants,—his little daughter Edith, and her pet dog. It was the reward of his gallantry that his own child should be thus the one to be so providentially saved. But even then he did not for a moment lose his self-command. Snatching up the child, and with one glance seeing that she was unharmed, he exclaimed, “Pass her along to the deck; there are more rooms to be searched.” In this way did he move about rapidly, but coolly, and did not again return to the deck until he had satisfied himself that not a single woman was in the burning, steaming, suffocating chamber. His intimate friend, Mr Trotman, who had followed him down almost immediately, found the poor lap-dog moaning under a heap of ruins, and was the means of restoring it to its little mistress.

The magnificent saloon was a mass of torn and shattered furniture, mirrors, and ornaments. Had the passengers adjourned to this apartment after dinner, instead of to the deck, the consequences would have been awful.