The screw engines were still in good order, and the big ship was soon on her way back to Queenstown, where we arrived five days after passing it on our outward voyage. The damage done to the ship was considerable, and some idea of the violence with which she had rolled can be formed from the fact that when the baggage room was opened, it was found that water having got into it, the baggage had been churned into a pulp, and was taken out in buckets.

The “Great Eastern” ended her somewhat inglorious career by laying cables across the Atlantic, and finally was broken up on the New Ferry shore at Birkenhead. She had served, however, one great purpose which had borne good fruit—she taught us that to successfully fight the Atlantic on its days of storm and tempest, which are many, the design of the engine and its power should receive as much consideration as the design of the ship’s hull.

Chapter X
BUILDING AN EAST INDIAMAN
A Reminiscence of 1856

Build me straight, O worthy Master,
Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel
That shall laugh at all disaster,
And with wave and whirlwind wrestle.
—Longfellow.

The building of a wooden East Indiaman recalls much of what was romantic in the history of British shipping—much of what was essentially British in the art of the craftsman. The old shipwright with his black wooden toolbox slung over his shoulder, or plying his adze or the caulking iron, is a type of a British artisan unhappily now becoming extinct. He was no ordinary workman following day after day the same monotonous job, for his work called for the constant exercise of his own individuality, of his powers of observation, and his ingenuity in the application of the teachings of experience; the selection of suitable timber, of proper scantling, oak crooks for the floors, aprons and knees, the curved timber for the futtocks, all called for skill and knowledge, and he had to keep constantly in view, when building, the necessity for giving proper shifts to the scarfs and the butting of the planks—all demanding not only thought, but daily presenting new problems which only a trained eye and experience could solve.

The rhythm of the old shipbuilding yard had a peculiar charm and attraction; it was not the monotonous deafening roar of the hydraulic riveter heard in the modern yard, but the music of the adze and the humming of the caulking chisel made a sort of harmony not unpleasant to the ear; while the all-prevailing smell of tar imported a nautical flavour which is entirely absent from the iron shipbuilding yard. We now only think in terms of angle iron, plates, butt straps, and rivets which follow one orthodox pattern. The iron ship is but a tank with shaped ends, or a girder, or a series of box girders, for every deck, and every row of pillaring constitutes a girder; their size and shape are all set out by the draftsman in the drawing office, the work in the yard is purely mechanical; the old skill of the craftsman is not called into play.

It was my good fortune, when I left school in 1856, to spend some time in the shipbuilding yard of George Cox & Son, of Bideford, in order that I might obtain some knowledge of the craft. The firm were engaged building the “Bucton Castle,” of 1,200 tons register, for the Calcutta trade, to class thirteen years A1, the highest class at Lloyd’s. It is of my experience in building that ship of which I purpose writing.

It will occur to many that Bideford was a strange out-of-the-way place for a shipyard. Bideford we only associate with Charles Kingsley and “Westward Ho!” with its long bridge of twenty-three arches, a bridge which has the repute of being a soul-saving bridge, an alms-giving bridge, a dinner-giving bridge, a bridge which owns lands in many parishes; but Bideford, with its wide expanse of sands and tidal bores, is about the last place to suggest shipbuilding. But Bideford, like Plymouth and Devonport in olden days, was in close proximity to large forests of oak and other woods essential to wooden shipbuilding.

The first thought of the builder of a wooden ship was to secure his timber, good natural oak crooks for the floor timbers, knees and aprons, and the futtocks forming the turn of the bilge, and good square timber for the frames, beams, etc. Not only had this to be carefully selected free from rends and shakes, but it had to be piled up in the yard and seasoned. In the same way elm timber required for the sheathing, and the pine necessary for the decks and inside ceiling, all required seasoning before being worked up.