The rudder[424] is constructed of two plate-iron cheeks framed together on a wrought-iron rudder-post, tapering from 14 inches diameter downwards, the frame being 9 feet wide from back to belly. The space between the 2 plate-iron cheeks within the rudder-frame is filled with solid blocks of wood, bound together and bolted through the plates, combining great strength with lightness.
There are ten anchors on board which, with their stocks, weigh 55 tons, and 800 fathoms of chain cable weighing 98 tons, the capstan and warps weighing 100 tons, so that there are 253 tons weight of appliances on board devoted exclusively to the purpose of anchoring or mooring the great ship. Through the centre of her stem there are two hawse-holes each 18 inches in diameter, so that the large cable runs straight out from the stem; and, besides these, there are additional hawse-holes on each side of the cutwater.
The ship itself a marvel though, commercially, a failure.
Such is or, rather, was the Great Eastern in all the leading features of her construction and equipment, and, however fallacious many of the calculations of the directors and designers may have proved, (and none were more so than those referring to the project as a commercial undertaking),[425] they and the constructors have produced a ship which is not merely a marvel in size, but, in beauty of symmetry, strength of hull, completeness of machinery, organization, and arrangement of details, equals, if she does not surpass, any vessel that has yet been constructed for ocean navigation.
It is to be regretted that the plans for launching the monster were not (for the credit of science and the great mechanical knowledge of the age) as perfect as the ship herself. Instead of constructing a dock, wherein she could have been built with less labour than upon piles, and which would have been valuable as a graving-dock when she was floated from it, they built her in a yard, and, contrary to the established custom, built her broadside to the element into which she had ultimately to be launched.
Preparations for, and details of, the launching of the Great Eastern.
The apparatus for launching the ship consisted of two inclined planes, each about 200 feet long by 80 feet broad, and nearly 140 feet apart, falling at an inclination of one in fourteen, to low-water mark. On these ways two cradles, each 80 feet square, were destined to slide, the object being that the great ship should be moved sideways into the river on two massive platforms, underlaid with transverse bars of hard iron, and corresponding in length to the width of the launching ways upon which they rested.
The cradles were provided with two enormous chains, with crab blocks and tackle, the standing part fastened to the further bank of the river and the ends carried through two portholes, and under the ship’s bottom. Two small steam-engines in the yard worked the crabs and blocks attached to the chains whereby the ship was, if necessary, to be dragged down the launching ways, which were prepared with an anti-attrition composition to facilitate the movement of the enormous mass. Besides these powerful tackles, there were two hydraulic presses, each of one thousand tons lifting power, placed behind the cradles, to which they could be applied to set the vessel in motion should the engines prove inadequate for that purpose.
But, in order to regulate the descent of the vessel, and check her progress, should it become too rapid, two immense friction drums or capstans were constructed, and fastened firmly by means of piles into the earth, so as to resist any possible strain that might be placed upon them. These drums, seven feet diameter in the barrel by twenty feet in length, were furnished with iron cables, each link of which weighed seventy pounds, attached by a double purchase to the cradle, and regulated by two gigantic break-levers worked by blocks and pulleys, a gang of men being at hand ready to apply instantaneously on receipt of signal this powerful check to the momentum of the vessel should it be found too great.
Such were the vast preparations made to launch the Great Eastern.