History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 4 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Comparative failure.

Some delay in the operations now necessarily occurred, but, at a quarter past three P.M., the time of high water, when the engines were again set to work, expectation was once more raised to the highest pitch. Every eye was now directed towards the cradles, but this time they did not stir an inch, and, as the chains tightened it became too apparent that if the vessel was not forced towards the water they must break. At length, subjected to a strain greater than ought to have been applied, the ponderous chain attached to the fore part of the vessel snapped asunder, and then all hopes of launching the leviathan were ended for that day. It would be superfluous to dwell on the many speculations as to the cause of this failure; certain it is that it was great and lamentable, and, as it was impossible to repair the injury the launching machinery had sustained, in time for further operations on the following day, no time was, then, fixed for resuming action.

However, on the 19th of November, these operations were again begun, the alleged object on this occasion being to move the great ship 40 feet lower down than the position she then occupied, so as to be ready for launching when the tide suited; but this effort equally proved abortive. The immediate cause of this second failure is accounted for by the abutments of the piles, against which the bases of the hydraulic rams rested, yielding under the enormous pressure exerted between them and the ship’s cradle, in many cases giving way or breaking down altogether.

Renewed efforts scarcely more successful.

Most of the subsequent operations of the company were kept as far as possible secret, and the presence of the public, which had been courted to witness an anticipated triumph, was now as studiously avoided, under the prudential plea of avoiding accidents, involving loss of life, by the too rapid motion of the ship towards the river. But a fresh experiment, after prodigious efforts, and the snapping of one of the 3-inch chains, proving likewise unsuccessful, the report of it soon got mooted abroad, and the public, always fluctuating between extremes, now began to entertain serious doubts whether the Great Eastern would ever get afloat.

Hydraulic ram bursts.

A third attempt, on Saturday, November 28th, proved however more successful than the previous efforts. On this occasion the Great Eastern was gradually lowered down the launching ways some 25 feet in a slow but satisfactory manner; while, on the 1st December, when the tedious process of moving the gigantic structure was recommenced, she moved steadily, for a time, at the rate of half an inch a minute, but, suddenly, soon after slipped 5 inches forward and 9 inches aft, to the terror of every person engaged in the operation; and, when renewed efforts were made in the course of the afternoon, one of the ten-inch hydraulic rams burst, as might have been anticipated, under the tremendous pressure of 1300 pounds to the square inch of its cylinder: consequently, the work of launching was suspended for that day.

Six weeks elapsed ere the operations were resumed, and, this time, with the most sanguine hope on the part of Mr. Brunel that the great ship would reach her destination by the spring tides of the 28th or 30th of January, 1858. On this occasion the plans could not be kept secret. Crowds of people were again in attendance, among whom were the Duchess d’Orleans, the Comte de Paris, and various other distinguished personages, as well as many men of science. The Great Eastern was, indeed, not merely the wonder of this age, but she created more sensation among men of scientific and maritime pursuits in all parts of the world than any vessel had ever done in any age. Nor was she an object of much less interest at the time to the general public, while the difficulties of her launch and the appliances for this purpose were freely discussed, often in no friendly spirit, at the meetings of the learned institutions, as well as in the gay gatherings of Belgravia, and in the more humble homes and workshops of Mile End and Poplar. The subject was one of hardly less interest throughout Europe and the United States. But shrewd practical men, while envying the superabundant wealth of the shareholders, and admiring their boldness in investing in her as a commercial undertaking with so questionable a chance of profit, quietly sneered at the futile attempts to launch the leviathan. Though of unusual weight and size, they said, that had the ordinary process been adopted, she would have found her way to the water with as much ease and safety as a vessel of ordinary dimensions. There was no need, they remarked, to launch her broadway to the Thames, as, in their opinion, she might have been so built that when started from her ways she would shoot either up or down the river, as hundreds of vessels launched from the banks of much narrower streams had done before her.

Floats of her own accord, January 31st, 1858.

However, on this occasion, the efforts at launching were so far attended with success, an average advance of 20 feet having been obtained in the course of the day, so that when the tide reached its height, the monster was 7½ feet in the water; but the only distance accomplished on the following day, was one solitary slip of “2½ inches,” and in this state she lay until Tuesday, the 31st January, when the great ship quietly floated of her own accord, the tide having risen sufficiently high to lift her from the cradles on which she had so long lain.