RMS Great Eastern

“ This steam power, coupled with the fact that she has been enormously strengthened in her sharp, powerful bows, by laying down three complete iron decks forward, extending from the bows backward for 120 feet, will demonstrate that in case of war the Great Eastern may prove to be a powerful auxiliary to the Government. These decks will be occupied by the crew of 300 or 400 men, and with this large increase of strength forward, the Great Eastern, steaming full power, could overtake and cut in two the largest wooden line-of-battle ship that ever floated. ”

“ The watertight subdivision of the Great Eastern was more complete than that of any ship that was ever constructed for the merchant service, more thorough even than that of recent passenger ships which have been designed for use as auxiliary cruisers in time of war. In addition to the great protection afforded by her double hull, she was subdivided by nine transverse bulkheads, which extended from the bottom clear through to the upper deck, or to a height of 30 feet above the water-line. ”

“ In the realm of steamships there has been scarcely any parallel to the rapid development which that nation exhibited, so that within a remarkably short space of time she became able not merely to build her own ships, but of a size that had been exceeded only by the Great Eastern, and with a speed that no liner of any sort or of any nationality had ever yet attained. It is fitting, therefore, to give here a brief sketch of the manner in which this new competition originated, for to this undoubtedly is due the coming of the mammoth ships represented by the Mauretania and Lusitania. ”

“ We must add to this list the new steamer "Great Eastern," whose tonnage is twenty-seven thousand tons, and which will make the entire present mercantile steam tonnage of Great Britain 660,330 tons. The greater portion of these steamers, exclusive of those engaged in the foreign mail service, are employed in the coasting and foreign continental trade; while some few of them run in the American merchant service, and many others in the subsidized mail service of foreign countries, such as the lines from Hamburgh and Antwerp to Brazil, and from those cities to the United States. ”

“ The ‘Great Eastern’ remains almost perfectly steady in ordinary rough seas. When the seas become very long, so that their period is nearly the same as that of the ship, she rolls; though the number of degrees on either side of the perpendicular is not large. By stowing the weights of cargo high in the ship, the tendency to roll has been much diminished, and when engaged in cable laying, with the enormous weights in the cable tanks all placed above the lower deck, she is remarkably steady. ”

“ Their ship, the City of Berlin, of 5,500 tons, is the largest vessel afloat except the Great Eastern, and has accommodation for 1,700 passengers. The White Star Line has two vessels of 5,004 tons each, the Britannic and Germanic. These few facts will indicate—although we may not be able to grasp them in their entirety—the immense growth of the ocean steam navigation in a period so short as that which has elapsed from the first steam-voyage across the Atlantic. ”

“ We have no desire to try the patience of the reader by presenting a mass of statistics, but those who delight in comparisons may be interested to learn how the Great Eastern would appear if put alongside the Mauretania. The latter displaces 40,000 tons, the Great Eastern displaced 32,000. The big Cunarder is 790 feet long, between perpendiculars, while the Great Eastern was 680 feet. The latter possessed a combined horse-power—paddle and screw engines—of 11,600, while the Cunarder has 70,000. ”

“ The Great Eastern was 692 feet long, 83 feet in width, and 581⁄2 feet deep. She was reckoned at 22,500 tons burthen. Her four engines were collectively of 11,000 indicated horse-power. She was fitted up in grand style to accommodate 4,800 passengers. As a troop-ship she could carry comfortably an army of 10,000 men in addition to her own crew of 400. She was provided with both paddle-wheels and a screw-propeller. The wheels were fifty feet in diameter, making twelve revolutions per minute; the four-bladed screw was twenty-four feet in diameter, adapted for forty-five revolutions per minute. ”

“ She was followed by the “Great Britain,” in 1843, 3,270 tons; she was, however, too large for the times, and did no good. The “Great Eastern,” [Pg 22] built in 1855, was of 18,915 tons, and 12 knots speed, and was also a failure, although if she had been given sufficient power she would probably have hastened the era of large and fast vessels.
The demand for speed was for some years the governing feature in the design of steamers in the Atlantic trade, and to a smaller extent in the Eastern trades, in which the carrying of coal for long voyages has also to be considered. ”

“ In water-tight sub-division, as in other matters, the Society and its large staff of able surveyors are “powers which make for” sterling efficiency.
The extended adoption of double bottoms is specially contributory to the safety of vessels in the event of their running over a reef into deep water, or in going ashore. Numerous instances are on record of steamships so constructed sustaining damage to the outer skin, and yet—because of the inner bottom remaining intact and perfectly water-tight—no serious damage resulting. The case of the Great Eastern is an early yet notable example. ”

“ A railroad connects the Red Sea with the Mediterranean; a canal already conveys the sweet waters of the Nile through deserts of arid sand to Suez, and a fleet of superb transports upon the Red Sea conveys our troops to India. Who can predict the future? Who can declare the great French work to be impossible, and deny that within the next half century the fleets of the Mediterranean will sail through the Isthmus of Suez upon the Lesseps Canal? England has been the first to direct to general use the power of steam. ”

“ A bird’s-eye view reveals great stacks of timber, iron, and steel; a net-work of rails which connect the works with all the principal lines converging at Glasgow; long brick sheds, and edging the water-front the launching-slips, where as many as fifteen vessels have been in course of construction at the same time. There the great hulls of many of the most famous Atlantic liners have been put together; this was the birthplace of all the new ships of the North German Lloyd line; of the Arizona, the Alaska, the Oregon, the Umbria, and the Etruria. ”

“ The Northern Pacific was served for years by the Boston Steamship Company, and the Great Northern Railroad built two of the largest cargo carriers in the world for an extension of service across the Pacific. Most of the ships in these extensions of railroads have been of American build.
In oversea traffic the through bills of lading and special terminal facilities gave the ships owned by railroads special advantages in the world's traffic. A great corporation is able to purchase supplies at the lowest prices. ”

“ On the west coast the principal part of the cross-channel, Irish mail, passenger, and cargo traffic is divided between the services organised by the London and North-Western Railway Company, the Midland Railway Company, and the Great Western Railway Company. For four years after the London and North-Western Railway Company had absorbed the Chester and Holyhead Railway, they continued to work the Irish service with the boats acquired from the latter company. ”

“ The routes upon which lines of steam packets can be sustained and made profitable to the owners are comparatively few, when we take into view the infinitely diversified ramifications of trade. Great Britain, with her vast colonial and general commerce, had, in 1848, but fifteen lines in which national or contract vessels were employed, including the home stations, as they are called, or points of connection between the British islands. Nor has the ocean steam packet system hindered, in the slightest degree, her progress in the construction of steam or sailing vessels for the naval service. ”

“ Anderson, Anderson & Co., who in that year founded the Orient Line of steamers from London to Australia. In 1882, when the latter company decided to double its sailings, the Pacific Steam Navigation Company made arrangements to employ several additional steamers in the Australian service. Although the Pacific Company was the first to establish steamship communication between Great Britain and the West Coast of South America, it has had to share the traffic in later years with the Gulf Line of steamers belonging to the Greenock Shipping Company, and with the steamers belonging to Messrs. ”

“ Condensers are a vital part of every sea-going steamship’s equipment. Locomotives do not need them, and stationary engines ashore do not, for they can easily replenish their supply of water, but to a ship crossing the ocean, fresh water is a vital necessity, for its boilers no less than for its passengers and crew, and should the used steam be allowed to escape, [Pg 113] the ship, no matter how great her water tanks might be, would probably run out of fresh water long before her voyage could be completed, if it happened to be at all long. ”

“ More than seventy steamers are engaged, this being the center of the Sound steamship traffic, besides lines of steamships to Japan and the Orient. The great transcontinental railroads meet the ships of the world in the commerce of the Pacific, being the shortest route between New York and the Asiatic harbors. ”

“ One of the most convincing proofs of the splendid management of the several steamship companies which trade between Liverpool and Glasgow, of the skill and honest workmanship put into the vessels, and of the great care exercised by the officers who navigate these ships, is the fact that for upwards of eighty years there has been but one disaster accompanied by loss of life on this station. ”

“ They were both paddle-steamers, built of wood, the former designed by Brunel, and engined by Maudsley, Sons & Field, and the latter built by Menzies, of Leith, and engined by Wingate & Co., of Glasgow. For upwards of eight years the Great Western continued to sail regularly between Bristol and New York, on which station she was very popular with passengers. She was sold in 1847 to the Royal Mail Steampacket Co., in which service she was also a favourite for several years. ”

“ With the present enormous waste of steam-power, trains with over three boats begin to increase the cost of freight per ton. The Governor King was less economical with five boats than with three. On a part of the Eastern Division, two powerful tugs, lashed side by side on the levels, have taken a train of (17) seventeen boats successfully. Give to half their combined steam fifty per cent. addition to their combined power, and train movement receives an important inauguration. Economy, dispatch, regularity and a universal harmony of interests prevail. ”

“ The early mariners could overcome these obstacles through the strength of their crews; in case of necessity they lowered their boats and towed the ship, but the vessels of the present no longer carry sufficient men to make such a proceeding possible. Sailing-ships therefore take to-day the Cape Horn route, in spite of its well-known delays, trials, and hardships. When later the German cruiser turned up at Easter Island with her captured crews, the great regret of the latter was that they had been taken just too late, after they had gone through the unpleasantness of the passage round the Horn. ”

“ It has entered into a new contract with the Royal Mail Steam-Packet Company, a material feature of which is to run a mail line direct from Southampton to St. Thomas, and thence to Chagres and back, twice a month, with steamers of larger capacity and power, and with a proposed speed of from twelve to fourteen miles per hour. For this line, five or six new steamships are, under the contract, to be built, while the old vessels are to form branches from this main line or trunk to other of the routes of this great and extended plan of steam intercourse and letter-carrying ”

“ Making his way aft to the rough wooden hut that served as a wheel-house, the Sub gave the signal to the engine-room staff to "stand by."
"Rummiest packets that ever sailed under the White Ensign," he soliloquised, as his eye caught sight of the dingy bunting floating from the yard-arm of the lighters' stumpy masts. "Ah, well; it's all in a day's work."
He gave the telegraph lever another jerk. ”

“ The Great Liverpool, of 1,540 tons and 464 horse power, built by Sir John Tobin, of Liverpool, and intended for the Liverpool and New York trade; and the Oriental, of 1,600 tons and 450 horse power, were the steamers offered by Messrs. Willcox and Anderson, and approved by the Admiralty, to convey mails between England and Alexandria, calling at Gibraltar, and combining the two mail services of the Peninsular and the Oriental, thus constituting the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. ”

“ Those who know the treacherous character of the Channel Islands coast-line, and the continuous stream of traffic which is going up and down the English Channel, will readily appreciate what it means to take a small steamship from port to port in thick weather. It was only in April of 1910 that one of the London and South Western Railway boats, the Laura, while on her way from Southampton to Cherbourg, collided when about twenty miles south of the Needles, with a Norwegian sailing vessel named the Sophie, bound up channel from South America to Hamburg. ”