Chapter IX: Steam Navigation. the ‘great Britain’ Steam-Ship (2)

I have no wish to escape the responsibility of advising you, as you
request me to do so, as to my opinion of the best plan to be
adopted hereafter for removing the ship; but adhering to the
principle that I have laid down, I should decline to do so at
present, did I not see reason to fear that you might be losing time
and money by relying upon expectations which I am convinced would
be disappointed. I would strongly urge upon you not to place your
reliance upon any plan which depends upon floating the vessel by
camels, and taking her to sea unrepaired, and therefore entirely
dependent upon those camels. The immense breadth of these floating
camels, and the risk of taking such an unmanageable floating
ill-connected mass to sea, cannot have been correctly or
sufficiently estimated; and the certainty of the whole going to the
bottom, in the event of even a very moderate gale of wind or a
slight swell, has been apparently quite lost sight of. I am also of
opinion that the difficulty of lifting the vessel at all by
auxiliary floats has been underrated. The vessel has worked herself
about 5 or 6 feet into the solid rock and sand, and may very
probably get a little deeper before the time for lifting arrives.
She must therefore be lifted, say at least 4 feet to 4 feet 6
inches, before she could be got out of the dock she has made; and
the floating power must therefore be calculated at least to raise
her 5 feet 6 inches, so as to be quite sure of moving her. Now
there is not more than 10 feet water around the vessel even at high
water of ordinary springs, and it would be impossible to calculate
upon more than 9 feet as a certainty. No floating power worth
having can be got in the vessel, and the floating vessels must
therefore be capable of sustaining the whole weight, with a draught
when the vessel is lifted of only about 4 feet. The weight to be
sustained is 2,000 tons, and to do this with vessels drawing only 4
feet would require that they should be upwards of 30 feet in
breadth on each side, forming with the ship a total width of
upwards of 100 to 120 feet, and upwards of 300 feet in length. I do
not say that this operation is impracticable, but it is at least a
very difficult one, and must be almost entirely dependent upon
weather, and, unless in perfectly smooth water, a very hazardous
one. My belief and conviction is that the safe mode of proceeding,
and by far the cheapest, will be to lift the vessel by mechanical
means, to lay ways under her, and to haul her up sufficiently far
for her to be safe from the sea; to repair her just sufficiently to
make her water-tight, then launch and bring her to Liverpool or
Bristol. But, as I have before stated, there is time to consider
these points, if in the meantime we take steps to preserve the
ship. If the property is not even now worth protecting, it will
indeed be waste of money to be preparing at some considerable
expense to remove what will in all probability be only then a
valueless carcase.

If the Directors should determine upon adopting the course I have
recommended, I must remind them that the plan is one depending
entirely on the skill, the vigour, the aptitude for expedients, and
possibly, if bad weather should come on, and day after day the work
be destroyed, on the unwearying perseverance and determined
confidence in the plan of the person directing it, and the
sufficiency of means at his command.

I cannot conclude without doing justice to Mr. Bremner, whom I met
on board, and acknowledging the friendly and liberal manner in
which he discussed the various means to be adopted, and assisted me
with his valuable advice; and, although I may have somewhat
differed with him as to the advisability of attempting to float the
vessel away to sea without first repairing her, yet upon most
points we were perfectly agreed; and I firmly believe that if any
man could take her off (and if it would be prudent to let him do
so), Mr. Bremner’s great experience and sound practical knowledge
and good sense in devising any plan, and his energy and skill in
carrying it out, would ensure every chance of success which the
circumstances admit of.[133]

The Directors adopted Mr. Brunel’s suggestions; and, at his urgent request, they appointed Captain Claxton to superintend the execution of his plans.

Captain Claxton thereupon went to Dundrum, where he took sole charge of all the subsequent operations.

The following is selected from the many letters written by Mr. Brunel to Captain Claxton at this time.

December 29, 1846.

You have failed, I think, in sinking and keeping down the fagots
from that which causes nine-tenths of all failures in this world,
from not doing quite enough. Two and a half hundredweight of
sandbags, weighing barely one hundredweight [_in water_], would not
of course keep quiet a large fagot of five bundles, and two and a
half hundredweight of fire-bars, I should think, would only barely
do. The load must always be excessive, to make sure of a thing....
I would only impress upon you one principle of action which I have
always found very successful, which is to stick obstinately to one
plan (until I believe it wrong), and to devote all my scheming to
that one plan, and, on the same principle, to stick to one method,
and push that to the utmost limits before I allow myself to wander
into others; in fact, to use a simile, to stick to the one point of
attack, however defended, and if the force first brought up is not
sufficient, to bring ten times as much; but never to try back upon
another point in the hope of finding it easier. So with the
fagots--if a six-bundle fagot wont reach out of water, try a
twenty-bundle one; if hundredweights wont keep it down, try tons.

The able manner in which Captain Claxton carried out Mr. Brunel’s plans, and suggested important modifications of them, is acknowledged by Mr. Brunel, in a report to the Directors, written after the successful completion of the breakwater.

February 27, 1847.

I beg to enclose Captain Claxton’s account of the proceedings at
Dundrum Bay during the time that he has been engaged in forming the
breakwater or protection to the ship in the manner recommended by
me.

Notwithstanding the great difficulties he has had to contend with
from almost incessant bad weather, with the wind blowing dead on
shore nearly the whole of the month of January, and consequently
preventing the tides from ebbing sufficiently out to allow of the
work being properly proceeded with, and notwithstanding the
occurrence of more than one storm at the most critical period of
the work, he has, as I fully relied upon his doing, succeeded in so
far protecting the ship, that she has been comparatively unaffected
by violent seas, which, there is no doubt whatever, would otherwise
have seriously damaged her. We may now calculate with tolerable
certainty upon preserving her without further injury until the
finer or at least more settled weather sets in.

In the work which Captain Claxton undertook, and has so
successfully completed, he has been compelled to vary very
materially the mode of proceeding first laid down; he has, in fact,
been obliged to adapt his plans to his means of execution, and
almost from day to day to devise modes of proceeding with only the
experience of the past day to guide him. Numerous unforeseen
difficulties have occurred, upon which he kept me daily informed;
and simple as my plan might have appeared to others, it required
much skill, contrivance, and unwearying perseverance to carry out
so many alterations and improvements as it progressed. I had relied
confidently on success when my friend Captain Claxton undertook the
work, and the result has fully confirmed my expectations.

It is now necessary to turn our attention to the best mode of
removing the ship. I hope in about a fortnight from the present
time to be able to give you some opinion upon this point, but it is
one requiring much consideration; and until I had the opportunity
of conferring with Captain Claxton on the subject, and also had
before me all the measurements and data which he has collected, it
was useless to attempt it.

* * * * *

The construction of the breakwater will be understood by the following extracts from a report made by Captain Claxton to the Admiralty.

‘Great Britain,’ July 16, 1847.

...Mr. Brunel’s instructions to me were principally by word of
mouth; the difficulty to be got over, in his opinion, being the
foundation upon sand, varying in depth according to the points or
hollow of a substratum of rock, and according to the quarter from
which the wind blew.

The foundation could only be made at low water, and as fast as a
layer of fagots was laid, it was rapidly pinned down with iron
rods, bent at the heads, varying from 9 to 6 feet in length, and
driven to the rock under, loaded with stones quarried from the
nearest reefs, and upon these, the last thing as the flood came in,
chain cables, air-pump covers, fire-bars in large bundles, and the
ship’s guns were dropped, care being always taken to have the ends
of the chains, and the slings of other heavy matters, fast to the
ship. As the tide in smooth water began to recede, or in heavy seas
began to lose effect in striking, these iron weights were lifted,
and the fagots which were ready were ... placed; and the same
process followed tide after tide when the water ebbed sufficiently,
which upon the neaps it never did at all, and upon the springs it
only did for about an hour, unless there was either no wind at all,
or unless the wind blew off the land, or from the West round by the
North to ESE. It is necessary, to a proper understanding of the
nature of this really large work, to describe a bundle of fagots,
lest an idea should be formed that it is a small thing and easily
handled. They averaged 11 feet in length, and 5 feet in
circumference near the butts, which all pointed one way. When tied
in Lord Roden’s wood, many were 13 feet long, and none were taken
under 10 feet. A cart of the country with one horse could carry
about ten bundles when well lashed, and as they came down there was
rarely more than the head of the horse to be seen. Sixpence per
bundle, and sixpence for delivery, was the contract; the distance
at high water nine miles, at low water six miles; and our sailors
made them into large bundles of twos, threes, and fours; now and
then we experimented with bundles of eight or even ten, in the
middle of which were bags of sand (old guano bags), varying in
number, of 2 cwt. each, and sometimes as many as amounted to a ton
in weight. These large bundles stood if the water remained smooth;
but if, before we could build up to their height with smaller
bundles, and, as it were, prop or shoulder them fore and aft, we
were caught by a breeze and sea, we found them rolled up to high
water mark, or on spring tides four hundred yards; while some are
now being hove out of the sand entire, and with the sand bags and
sand complete....

Having got the foundation, on which, I may mention, we placed one
of the ship’s iron life-boats, 30 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 5
feet deep, and loaded her with stones, and which also, although
over bundles of fagots, went bodily down, until only the gunwale
was above the level of the strand, we began to build the part which
was to save the ship from the blows of the sea, and which I was
instructed by Mr. Brunel to bring up to a point to the ship’s
gunwale in the form of a large poultice, occupying the whole space
under her counter, the whole of the exposed quarter (the port
quarter), and inclining inwards from the outside, and declining
from the top to the same point forward, to the after end of the
bilge keel. I was to be, and was, as careful as I could be to
secure as well as to weight down as we built. Chains were secured
in many places to the lower bundles of fire-bars sunk in the sand
outside all, and these were brought into the arms of the screw, and
to ring bolts let into the ship; and rarely were two layers placed
without a repetition of the securing and weighting process all the
while we had chains to use....

We were frequently beaten; whole masses were capsized, but it was
found that even the foundation broke the ground swell, which,
instead of having a fair run as it has over the strand, seemed
stopped, and to break differently; and certainly the ship was daily
eased of the blows of the sea.... Finding the wind keeping on
shore, the fagots we placed shrinking, sinking, or settling down,
and, notwithstanding the weights and lashings, commonly breaking
away, I proposed to try spars. Mr. Brunel acceded, and recommended
my trying four long ones, to the heels of which were to be attached
chains with a spread of eight feet, the spars being pointed at the
heels, the slack of the chains, and the height at which they were
stopped to the spars, being intended to be sufficient to embrace
about a dozen bundles of fagots, the points of the spars sticking
through the foundation below the level of the sand. After placing
the first pair of spars at an angle from the gunwale of about 70
degrees, and before the second pair with its fagots could be got in
place, and after heaving them down tight with a tackle to each from
the head to the gunwale, a heavy sea came with the flood dead on,
and although the spars were seven inches square, they stood the
blows of the sea, bending in the middle full five feet when heavily
struck. This gave me the idea of green trees: firs being the first
that occurred to me; first because of their height, and next
because in Lord Downshire’s grounds at Dundrum the castle wood
consisted of them only, and lastly, because they were cheap and at
hand. The spars we fortunately placed, and which stood so well,
were American elm, a large balk of which had been sawed in four
lengths of 42 feet for framing, for Mr. Bremner’s breakwater....
The lengths required to allow the application of a tackle to the
head to heave them tight down to the gunwale, or to the
scuttle-holes of the ship, were from 45 to 50 feet. I found that
the firs of this length were scarce, and too fine at the head; but
on looking in Lord Roden’s wood, a better substitute was offered in
the form of beech trees of any size, and a contract was speedily
made, and as speedily completed; the carts of the country bringing
in one tree at a time, until about eighty were placed at the most
exposed point, the quarter, in three rows, the outside row at an
angle of 45 degrees. Beech-trees were found decidedly better than
firs, or, I believe, than any other description of tree, as their
weight was soon found sufficient to keep them in place without the
heaving down tackles. They can be got of great length, without
being so large and (carting, pointing, and handling considered) so
unwieldy a butt as firs, and they are of greater diameter aloft,
consequently stronger, and altogether tougher than firs. Having got
the whole stern surrounded, and having continued them at from 4 to
5 feet apart up to the bilge keel, or about 80 feet of the ship
from the screw, I applied smaller spars (easily and economically
obtained from the Tyrella domain, or within half a mile of the
ship) laterally and diagonally, and about a foot apart in the
former case, and 3 or 4 feet in the latter; the number about 300,
of all or any lengths between 15 and 30 feet. While this was about,
the fagot process was going on; and before that was completed, I
found the foundation with the boat, and its 40 tons of stones, and
even the spars, although pointed at the angles, indicated an
inclination to move forward through the sheer force of the rollers.
To check this, tackles were made fast to three warps out to
seaward, with two anchors to each, and brought to the spars with
four spans to the inner block. Thus twelve of the largest spars
were grappled, the falls taken on board, and all hove tight; the
whole of the spars having first been attached to one another by a
round turn of a half-inch chain with strong staples, and of course
by the lateral spars or spreaders, and their innumerable seizings.
Suffice it to say, as regards the spars, that when struck by
violent seas from half-flood to half-ebb, they bend in a body from
3 to 4 feet, and spring back after the blow; and this is, I
believe, the whole secret of the efficiency of the spar part of the
breakwater, which has stood the whole winter, only one having
broken, and that because the head took against the topsail yard,
lashed along stanchions of the rails as a hold-down for the tackles
attached to their heads. As a proof that this is the probable cause
of its standing so well, I may refer to Mr. Bremner’s breakwater,
which went with the first heavy gale and sea, although made of
balks of from 17 inches to 13 inches thick: also to our having
ourselves placed a pine spar 9 inches diameter down by the side of
the outside tree on the starboard quarter, and which broke in two
right in the middle with the first sea that struck it. The sea
struck very hard against the spars and framework, from which it was
received by the fagots without any shock to the ship worth speaking
of. With respect to the fagots, I could not find materials to go on
weighting down as we went on piling up.... I therefore ran the
remaining fagots up light. No sooner, however, was this done, and a
gale came on, than we were compelled to let go the lashings, and to
help some of the top ones to escape, as the whole of the unloaded
body rose and fell full three feet with the sea, and would have
done mischief to the spars and to the ship, by shouldering her
quarter, and twisting her. About 200 bundles broke away in this
gale. They were, however, all recovered, and placed further forward
and low down, and then loaded with stones; about one third of the
top space having after this been left open, or one third down from
the apex levelled. Shrinkage did much towards this, and breaking
in pieces a good deal; so it was not deemed advisable to fill that
space again.

About the 1st of May the progress made in lifting the ship by
tightening her from the inside, and by lightening her of everything
moveable, led me to believe that we should be about getting her off
towards the end of this month. I therefore felt that it was time to
begin removing the fagot portion of the breakwater.... The process
of levelling went on for about three weeks, when all above the
loaded portion was taken away. We commenced on that portion from
necessity, and found that by no contrivance of purchases and levers
could our ten men get up or out more than four or five bundles per
tide. This became, and even now is, a serious matter. We have got
up all our chains and weights, and nothing remains but the fagots
and stones, which are so embedded in sand as to form a mass which
is more difficult to move than granite rock would be, as we cannot
blast. Twenty labourers have been twenty-one tides at work, by
contract, and certainly they have made an impression; but it is not
lowered over two feet. The lower portion was made of furze bundles,
here called whins, and they are great collectors of sand, and only
come up at all by being cut to pieces. I mention this to show that
furze and fagots loaded with stones on sand 500 yards from
high-water mark, exposed to the sea, will form a foundation on
which a building of any weight might be erected....

Mr. Brunel informed me, when I undertook to carry out his views,
that there was nothing new in using fagots to stop breaches in
sea-walls, as in Holland; and that he saw no reason why they should
not stop the force of the sea in protecting ships as well, provided
they could be secured, and a foundation got. They were to be made
of alders, ash, holly, laurel, oak, or anything tough, to be cut
down, and made up green, to be placed with all their leaves on, to
be pointed to the sea at their butts; and inside the walls of them,
if I may so speak, whin (furze) bundles were to be weighted down,
the fagots placed in steps or rows of about 4 feet from the outside
to the ship’s gunwale.

* * * * *

As the summer came on, the mode of lifting and floating the ship had to be decided. On this point Mr. Brunel wrote to the Directors:--

May 4, 1847.

You have heard from time to time from Captain Claxton of the result
of the means adopted by him for protecting the ‘Great Britain’ from
the effects of the sea, and which, I am happy to say, have been
quite successful; and you will have heard also generally from him
of the steps which we have since taken, preparatory to getting off
the ship.

I will now explain to you the object I have kept in view in these
preparations, and the course I should now advise you to follow.

After completing the works for the protection of the ship, and
before determining upon any mode to be recommended to you for
getting her off, I thought it would be desirable to lighten her of
all that could be easily removed, and to ascertain how much of the
vessel could be made water-tight, and what extent of buoyancy could
be obtained in the vessel herself, as, in my opinion, upon our
success in this would depend altogether the practicability of
lifting the ship by camels. If no great extent of buoyancy could
have been obtained, I should certainly have recommended lifting the
vessel by mechanical means, as I do not consider that, with the
draft of water which could be calculated upon around her on
ordinary tides, sufficient floating power by camels could be
obtained in an easy practicable manner. It was also quite possible
that we might succeed in making the vessel alone sufficiently
buoyant to lift high enough on the spring tides; and by shifting
her position, or by other means, to maintain the lift thus got, to
allow of getting under her bottom to repair her.

By great exertion nearly the whole of the compartments forward and
aft of the engine space, and part of the coal bunkers, have been
made tight; and if the tides had ebbed as low as usual, the other
bunkers and the boilers, fireplace and flues, would also have been
made water-tight by these last springs.

Unfortunately, from the direction of the wind and other causes,
these tides have neither ebbed nor flowed to their full extent;
still, the vessel has been lifted, and some of this lift has been
maintained, and if we were fortunate, it is evidently quite
possible that our utmost expectations might be realized, and
possibly the vessel might be lifted sufficiently to be made tight
without any external assistance. This, however, would be too much
to calculate upon, and the weight to be lifted having been reduced
to one-half what it was, and being capable of still further
reduction, the operation of lifting by camels becomes a much more
practicable undertaking.

I should now therefore recommend that application be made to some
parties who have had the most experience in such work, to lay their
proposals before the Directors; and that in the meantime we should
continue to make every effort to add to the buoyancy of the
ship....

I believe that, in such a case, quiet, sober consideration,
assisted by experience, and by careful examination of all the
circumstances on the spot, will be infinitely more valuable than
the most ingenious and brilliant schemes. And I believe we are most
likely to obtain these conditions by calling in a man like Mr.
Bremner, and leaving him to confer with Captain Claxton, and that
he should have the benefit of our advice and assistance, and then
lay his plans and proposals before the Directors.

Mr. Bremner and his son, assisted by Captain Claxton, made preparations for releasing the ship. The system followed was that sketched out by Mr. Brunel--namely, that of lifting the ship by mechanical arrangements, and then making good the leaks. The difficulties they had to contend with are graphically described in the reports which were sent almost daily by Captain Claxton to Mr. Brunel, and which were afterwards printed by the Directors at Mr. Brunel’s suggestion.[134]

The principal leak was stopped, and the ship’s head raised 8 feet 7 inches by ramming wedges and stones under her at high water. At last, on August 27, the ship was floated, and Captain Claxton wrote to Mr. Brunel:--

Huzza! huzza! you know what that means.... I made up my mind to
stop her at the edge of low water, and then examine and secure all
that might discover itself. The tide rose to 15 feet 8 inches. She
rose therefore easily over the rock, but was clear of it by only
just five inches, which shows how near a squeak we had--it was a
most anxious affair, but it is over. I marked 170 yards in the sand
and on our warp, and at that extent I stopped her.... I have no
doubt that to-morrow we shall see her free.

The following day they started for Liverpool. One hundred and twenty labourers were hired to work at the pumps, but only thirty-six came on board, and their services were unavailable, as they spent their time in discussing how much they were to be paid. Consequently, when the ship was taken in tow at 4 A.M. on the 28th there was 6 feet of water in the engine room and 5 feet in the fore hold, and she was making 16 inches an hour. Men from Her Majesty’s ships ‘Birkenhead’ and ‘Victory,’ which had been sent by the Admiralty to assist, were drafted on board, and the influx of water was reduced to four inches an hour. It was evident that Liverpool could not be attempted, so they made for Strangford Lough. A dense fog came on when they were off the entrance, and they pushed on to Belfast Lough, where the ship was grounded. During the night she was cleared of water, and the next day she started for Liverpool. The landsmen who had been hired the previous night to work the pumps were incapacitated by sea-sickness; and the ship was only kept afloat by the exertions of Captain Claxton and the dockyard hands who had been sent to assist in navigating her across. When she arrived at Liverpool she was placed over a gridiron, on which she sank when her pumps were stopped.

Notwithstanding the successful result of the efforts made for her rescue, the stranding of the ‘Great Britain’ in Dundrum Bay led to the ruin of the Company; and she was some time afterwards sold to Messrs. Gibbs, Bright, & Co., of Liverpool, by whom she was repaired, and fitted with auxiliary engines of 500 nominal horse-power. On a general survey being made, it was found that she had not suffered any alteration of form, nor was she at all strained. She was taken out of dock in October 1851, and since that time she has made regular voyages between Liverpool and Australia.

She is known as one of the fastest vessels on that line; and remains to testify to the ability and wisdom of those who, more than thirty years ago, were daring enough to build so large a ship of iron, and to fit her with the screw propeller.

* * * * *

NOTE (p. 255).

_Dimensions of the ‘Great Britain’ Steam-Ship._

feet inches

Total length 322 0

The length of keel 289 0

Beam 51 0

Depth 32 6

Feet of water 16 0

Tonnage measurement 3,443 tons.

Displacement 2,984 "

_Dimensions of original Engines, &c._

Number of cylinders 4

Diameter of cylinders 88 inches

Length of stroke 6 feet

Weight of engines 340 tons

Weight of boilers 200 "

Water in boilers 200 "

Weight of screw-shaft 38 "

Diameter of screw 15 ft. 6 in.

Pitch of screw 25 ft.

Weight of screw 4 tons

Diameter of main drum 18 feet

Diameter of screw-shaft drum 6 "

Weight of coal 1,200 tons