Renewed endeavours were now made to reorganise the undertaking, and after much difficulty the affairs of the original company were wound up, the sum of 160,000l. having been accepted for the sale and transfer of the vessel to a new company, which came into possession of her in the beginning of the year 1859.
Makes her first sea trip, September 9th, 1859.
Somewhere about 300,000l. having been subscribed for the new undertaking, which received the name of the Great Ship Company, the directors, after paying for the ship, had 140,000l. left to equip her for sea; but it was not until September 1859 that the Great Eastern was sufficiently complete to make her first trial trip. On Wednesday, the 9th of that month, she took her departure from the Thames under the most favourable circumstances, the weather being very fine with a light breeze of wind and blue sky overhead. Starting with four tugs, two on the bow and two at the quarter, to guide her through the narrow parts of the river, she, after some delay and a few slight mishaps, reached Purfleet, where she anchored for the night. At daylight, on the following morning she started for the Nore, where she arrived about noon, having obtained a speed of “13 knots” an hour, though only at “half-speed”, her engines making not more than eight revolutions a minute.
From the Nore the Great Eastern proceeded successfully to Whitstable, where she anchored, getting under weigh, thence, at a quarter past nine on the following morning with a fresh breeze. After passing Margate she encountered a stiff gale, where, as represented in the following woodcut, she appears “quite at ease,” when “large ships were under double reefed topsails” and small vessels were obliged to “lie to.”
Accident off Hastings, and the opinion of the pilot.
But an unfortunate accident occurred to her, when off Hastings, through the explosion of one of her funnel-casings, causing the death of six men employed in the engineering department, injuring various others, and destroying nearly all the mirrors and other ornamental furniture in the grand saloon. Though appalling enough at the time, no injury was done to the hull or machinery of the vessel sufficient to prevent her proceeding on her voyage to Weymouth, which she reached without any further misfortune on the afternoon of Friday, within the time anticipated for her arrival.
S.S. “GREAT EASTERN,” UNDER FULL SAIL AND STEAM, PASSING DOVER.
Reaches Holyhead; and details of her voyage.
On her arrival, the pilot who had been in charge of the Great Eastern from Deptford to Portland (Weymouth Bay), made an official report of her performances to the company,[429] confirming, in some measure, the glowing accounts in many of the public journals and realising the sanguine expectations of the directors, though their hopes of profit had been somewhat damped by the accident which, apart from the loss of life, entailed an outlay of 5000l. The necessary repairs having been completed, the Great Eastern proceeded from Portland to Holyhead, but without passengers as originally contemplated. Starting at noon of the 8th of October, she made the run to Holyhead in forty hours at an “average speed of close upon 13 knots or more than 15 statute miles in the hour,” having on some occasions attained a speed of 15 knots an hour, the engineers and other experienced men on board feeling “thoroughly convinced that, when in the condition which the company has a right to expect, she will make easily 18 knots or 21 miles an hour.”