The paddle-engines, during one portion of the passage where a careful record was kept, appear to have made from 8¾ to 9¾ revolutions per minute, and the screw from 32 to 33½ revolutions in the same time, the pressure being 20 pounds per square inch in both cases with the throttle-valves half closed and both engines working on the second grade of expansion, giving an average speed of 12 knots an hour, but with an outlay of “10 tons of coal per hour.” On another occasion when the sails were set, and the weather more favourable, she is said to have attained a speed of 15 knots, with the screw making from 38 to 40, and the paddles from 10½ to 11 revolutions per minute, and, at this rate of speed, the screw boilers consumed on the average at the rate of 170 tons per day, and the paddle-engines on the average 110 tons, giving a consumption of 280 tons of coal each day under favourable circumstances. During the highest rate of speed the engines made 11 revolutions for the paddles per minute and 43 for the screw. A special trial gave the speed of the ship under paddle-wheels alone 7¼, and under the screw alone 9 knots an hour.
Makes her first voyage across the Atlantic, June 1860.
Having made the trial trip to Holyhead to the satisfaction of her directors, the Great Eastern left that harbour shortly after noon on the 2nd of November for Southampton, but did not leave that port on her first voyage across the Atlantic until the morning of the 17th of June, 1860, reaching New York on the 28th of that month. The greatest speed attained during the passage was 14½ knots an hour, and the greatest distance run in any one day 333 knots.[430] Only thirty-six passengers were found bold enough to accompany her on this voyage, besides two of the directors. But the Americans gave her a warm and hearty reception on her arrival at New York; hundreds of small vessels crowded with people having gone out to meet her and bid her welcome, the scene in the North River, where she moored, being described[431] as a “perfect ovation.”
In the report which the directors issued to the shareholders[432] shortly after the Great Eastern returned to Milford Haven (where she was placed with great skill on a gridiron and had her bottom cleaned and painted) they state that 14,000l. had been remitted from the agents at New York, and, though they had not then furnished their accounts, the directors expressed a hope that the receipts would cover the expenses of the trial trip to America without trenching on the capital; they, however, stated that heavy outstanding claims remained unsettled, and that they would require, to meet these demands and put the ship into good working order, an additional capital of from 30,000l. to 40,000l.
Second voyage, May 1861.
The requisite sum having been provided, the Great Eastern left Milford Haven on her second passage for New York on the 1st of May, 1861, with 100 passengers. On this occasion she consumed from 159 to 295 tons of coals per day; the entire distance (3093 miles) being accomplished in ten days, though the wind, by her log, appears to have been ahead during a considerable portion of the voyage. In one day, she accomplished a distance of 348 nautical miles, her greatest speed being 14½ knots an hour, or one half knot per hour less than the average speed anticipated on a voyage to India.[433]
Third voyage to Quebec, July 1861.
On the return of the Great Eastern to England in the following month of June, the apprehension of war with the United States occasioned by the Trent affair induced the British Government to engage her, with other steamships, to transport troops and munitions of war to Canada. But those embarked (or rather, for prudential reasons, allowed to embark) fell far short of the number her designers had contemplated; they had estimated 10,000, but the Government wisely limited the number to 2079 men, 46 officers, 159 women, and 244 children, besides 40 cabin passengers who were civilians. Having landed her troops at Quebec, she left that place on her return to England at four o’clock on the morning of the 6th of August, and, though detained twelve hours in crossing the bars in the River St. Lawrence, she arrived at her moorings in the Mersey on Thursday at 8.30 P.M. of the 15th of that month.
Fourth voyage, September 1861.
Heavy gale off the S.W. coast of Ireland, compelled to return to Cork.