Sunday, 14th.
Joiners get high premiums. One of them is hurt.
At half-past 6 A. M., twenty-seven artificers landed on the rock, and returned again at half-past 9. At half-past 10, the joiners and smiths again went to the Beacon, and at 6 P. M. the remaining eighteen artificers landed, and the whole returned to the ship at half-past 9; the masons having been six hours and a half on the rock to-day, while the joiners and smiths were about fourteen hours at work on the rock and Beacon together, so that their premiums for extra hours’ work, independently of their stated pay and allowances, were considerable, averaging about L. 3 per month for the workmen, and double that sum for the foremen. Unfortunately, one of the joiners was pretty severely hurt, by the fall of a mason’s pick upon one of his feet, from the smith’s gallery on the Beacon, which disabled him for some time from working in the water.
Monday, 15th.
The work makes rapid progress.
The weather continuing moderate, and the tides being good, the work went on without interruption during these tides. This morning at half-past 6 o’clock, twenty-seven artificers landed on the rock, and continued till a quarter past 10. At noon, the joiners and smiths returned to the Beacon, and commenced their operations, as usual, at the higher parts of it; and at half-past 6, or at low-water, the remaining eighteen artificers landed, when the whole were employed at the railways, fixing mooring rings, and laying down small floating-buoys as guides for the landing-master, in approaching the rock from the westward with the loaded praams. In all these operations, the sailors took an active part, and the number of hands at work to-day, including them, amounted to thirty-eight. In this manner, the work was continued without any material interruption during five days. The low-water operations, including the night-tides, generally continued for six hours, and the joiners and smiths, for twelve or fourteen hours each day.
Saturday, 20th.
One of the Buoys gets water-logged. Tender leaves her station.
The wind, which had been easterly during these spring-tides, continued moderate till yesterday, when it blew what sailors term a stiff breeze, which soon set up a considerable sea upon the Rock, and the tides being now in the state of neap, no landing was attempted to-day. One of the mooring buoys having got water-logged, must soon have disappeared and sunk, had not the Tender been hauled alongside, when it was taken upon deck. An auger-hole was bored in it and the water let off, being what the sailors term “bleeding;” when the hole was closed with a plug, and the buoy was again lowered in the water, and floated as before. The spring-tides being now considered over, the Tender sailed for the bay of Arbroath, where she was made fast to a set of moorings laid down for the conveniency of the work during the summer months, and at 8 P. M. the artificers came on shore in the boats.
Sunday, 21st.