THE GREAT EASTERN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18457, 21 July 1923, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE GREAT EASTERN.

STORY OF FAMOUS SHIP.

A DARING EXPERIMENT.

HUGE COST OF LAUNCHING.

LAYING ATLANTIC CABLES.

Of all (lie famous ships of the nineteenth century none more surely deserves her story to bo written than ' the Great Eastern. She was the last, ship Brunei was concerned with, but while in the case of the Great Western and Great Britain he was assisted by Claxton and Guppy, in the building of the Great Eastern he was associated with the famous naval architect, John Scott Russell.

In the 'fifties of last century Russell had a shipyard at Milhvall, and here, in conjunction with Brunei, he built the steamship Victoria, which went from Gravosend to Adelaide in 60 days and gained a prize of £500 offered by the Colonies for the fastest passage to Australia. This vessel and the Adelaide belonged to the Australian Steam Navigation Company. Another company, the Pastern Steam Navigation Company, was Interested ;-, this trade, and it was to the directors of tins company and to Scott Kusscll that Brunei first communicated his suggestion lor a ship of extraordinary dimensions to trade with India The idea was for the big ship to steam round the Cape to, say, Ceylon, and there discharge her cargo into smaller vessels acting as distributors and feeders. Optimistic calculations as to the volume of possible cargoes were made, and it was decided the ship was to bo large enough to carry coal sufficient for the doubls journey. She was to be called Leviathan. Capital being forthcoming, the order of the ship was placed with Scott Russell, and on May 1, 1854, the keel was laid. Eighteen months was the original time for building, bat the actual time was over four years. Cellular Construction. The main dimensions of the ship were i Length, 692 ft.; breadth, 82J,ft. ; tonnage. 18,914 ; displacement when loaded, 27,384 tons. While Russell was responsible for tho lines of tho ship—she was built on the "wave" principle—to Brunei was due the Introduction of«■ the cellular construction, like that of the famous tubular Britannia Bridge. Up to the water-line the ship was double. The upper deck was also double. For some 350 ft. in the centre of the ship ran two longitudinal bulkheads 36ft. apart the double bottoms, the double deck and these bulkheads thus forming a sort of plate girder. She was divided into 11 separate compartments, the bulkheads having no openings In them below the B6C*md deck. Some 30,000 Iron plates of about one-third of a ton each and Bome 3.000,000 rivets were used In her 1 construction.

Another unusual feature was the provision of two tunnels running through the upper part of her machinery spaces for the steam and water pipes, etc Under full sail she had a spread of 6500 square yards of canvas. When ready for launching the Great Eastern weighed 12,000 tons. She had been built parallel to the river, and rested in two cradles 80ft. square and 120 ft. apart. The launching ways consisted of a. series of railway lines of the typo used by Brunei on the Great Western Railway. Altogether the ship had to travel 200 ft. down an incline cf Ito 14. To start the ship two largo hydraulio presses had been provided. The first attempt to launch her was made on Nov. 3, 1857. ft largo and fashionable company being present. It was not, however, till bhrea months later, on Jan. 31, 1858, that the vessel was at last floated. The hydraulio presses had been supplemented" by a score of hydraulio jacks from Tangyes, and Richard Tangye used to say "We launched that Great Eastern, and the Great Eastern launched us." Half $ dozen attempts had to be made before the vessel was forced down the incline into the water, and the operations are said to have cost some £120.000. Tha Engines.

Extraordinary as was the ship itself tie machinery was scarcely less remarkable. At the time when 2000-h.p. was regarded as large, the power of tho Great Eastern's engines totalled 11,000-h.p, This was used to drive both paddles and screw. The paddle engines w-sro built by Scott Russell, and the screw engines by James Watt and Co., of Birmingham, the successors of the world famous Boulton and Watt. Of the oscillating type, the paddle engines had four immense cylinders over 6ft. in diameter and with a stroke of 14ft. Each cylinder and piston weighed 38 tons. Supplied with steam at* 251b. pressure and working at 13 strokes per minute these engines developed 5000-h.p. The screw engines had four horizontal cylinders of 7ft. diamstor and 4ft. stroke, developing rbout 6000-h.p, at 60 strokes per minute. The propeller was 24ft. in diameter, and if fcho screw engines were shot of? for the ship to proceed under paddles or sails, a small pair of engines revolved the screw shaft and screw to reduce the drag'. Ten box tubular boilers, fitted with 112 furnaces, supplied thfi steam. - »

By tho timo the Great Extern was iifloat tho funds of tiio company were .exhausted, and the ship, which had cost some £600,000 or £700,000, was transferred to the Great Ship Company for £160,000. After considerable delay she was at last prepared for soa, and on Sept.. 5, 1859, went down tho Thames on her first trial. Brunei was present then, but a day or two later ho was smitten down with paralysis, find oa 15 died. ■"■',• A Ohequered Career. - Th* first trip of the Great Eastern was to Weymouth and Holyhead and Southsmpiot.. Ov .Tune 17, 18CO. she left for S'irv York, h'Jt carried only 36 passengers!' On her :iocoi:-j voyage, in May, 1861, she ni'c 10!.') pa?:;i*ntera Altogether, between ib'jQ iin:'i 1.x.3, siv.* crossed and re-crossed tho Atlantic nine times. On one occasion she broke he/, rudder head, on another kJis lost her paddle wheels. This gigantic vessel, it must be remembered, "was then fit-roivjil by hand, Macfarlane Gray's steam steering er.gine not being fitted till 1866. As i money-making concern she was a complete failure. . She found her true vocation in laying tho third and fourth Atlantic cables' in 1065 and 1866. Follow ing this, she laid the French Atlantic cr.ble, and then did similar work in the. Kast.

The complete story of the Great Eastern brings one /into contract with many of the greatest'engineers and men of science of 'he r-.isrri of Victoria. After her cable work she found no useful employment. At one time she was bought for a ccal hulk at Gibraltar; at p.vine- she fOfS placed on exhibition. . Her career finally came to an end fit the hands of the, shipbreaker? on the Verses, "oh) in ovemher, IiISF. she fetch-:a* £43.000. of which I £2960 vi: fcr the ■"'■.•...■-, £4400 for the- ! ran metal, £39c0 for i.i.'a brasa, and £4185 j f.-.r the lead. j Praise and Criticism. • Applauded on the one hand, belittled j on the- other, the Great Eastern was , referred to L>v Mafcinnis as "the last of the ; costly ami bit'er memories of the engineer j Jinn-M." Pollock, however, wrote of her i wine she was still E.:\oat that she "lift \ rioubtedly fu-iishci. in larce measure, the j exj;sri'in.?e that has recently been causing j no' irrsat f . charge in the l<jnnace of our: r.errE.'itile marine." and "apart from com- j mercial considerations, however, this ; premier leviathan still stands out as a J wonder and oati-c-rn of naval construction. . When the Great Eastern first nut to sea I the fines* Cunar.der wr.s but 360 ft. long and of 3300 tonsf'farross), while the largest vessel in the :Xavy, the wooden line-of- j battle shit: Victoria, was only 260 ft. long. I 'Brunei,' r ?yhi Sir William White, "made i « riwamic experiment which proved a suc- | cess on the technical side, although it resulted in a commercial failure," and, he j controlled, (he Great Eastern "will always j be regarded as having been a monumental , structure which Bhould have been pre- j s-orved.''