The life of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Civil Engineer Part 30

The first alternative may I think be discarded at once; the plates and ribs of an iron vessel are difficult enough to convert into useful materials for any other purposes, even in the midst of workshops and with tools and appliances at hand. In such a place as Dundrum Bay I do not believe the materials would pay the expense of cutting up; the masts, spars, chains, &c., in fact the stores and perhaps a few of the lighter part of the engines, might repay the cost of removal, but the whole would certainly not amount to many thousands; probably hundreds would be a safer estimate of the amount to be realised clear of all expenses. To remove the vessel and take her into port, and either restore her or sell her, is then the only means of recovering any part of the whole of the capital invested in this s.h.i.+p. If she is so brought into port she may be worth, unrepaired, 40,000_l._, 50,000_l._, or 60,000_l._, according to the opportunities that may offer themselves of employing her usefully or selling her. The only question is, then, how at the least expense, and at the smallest risk, is the vessel to be got into port? But, as I will now endeavour to prove to you, the mode of getting the vessel off the sh.o.r.e and into port is again quite secondary to the consideration of how to preserve her where she is so that she may be in a condition to be removed, _and to be worth removing_, when the means of doing this are ready, and the proper time is arrived for attempting it.

In the first place I a.s.sert unhesitatingly, that no man in his senses and who thoroughly understands the circ.u.mstances of the case, the weight and position of the vessel, the amount of the rise and fall of the tide, and the draught of water around her, and the extraordinarily exposed situation, would dream of calculating upon completing the requisite means for floating her under three months.

_In the meantime the s.h.i.+p must be protected._ Even if it were practicable to construct the necessary apparatus, and to float the vessel to-morrow, it would be little short of madness to go to sea with her at this time of the year; but I am doing wrong to discuss a case which cannot arise. The vessel cannot, according to any rational calculation of chances, be got off under three months, and it is equally against all probability that, if left unprotected, there would be anything worth taking off at that time. It is useless, therefore, at this moment discussing the best mode of floating the vessel; and I think, under such circ.u.mstances, it would be most unwise hastily to determine upon any plan. The first thing is to know whether there are any means of preserving the vessel, and whether any such plans can be carried into effect at some reasonable cost, which it may be worth incurring. I have looked at the vessel, and considered the very exposed situation in which she is placed (and a more exposed one could hardly be found), and I am convinced that no fixed breakwater of ordinary construction could be made at any reasonable expense, or in time to prevent mischief. There is no depth of sand into which to drive piles, and the rock is too uneven and broken to allow of any framing being constructed and secured to it; and any framework would be liable to be destroyed during the progress of its construction, as that already attempted has been, and the timber might be the cause of serious damage to the s.h.i.+p. The plan I should recommend would at least be free from these objections, would be comparatively inexpensive, and I am firmly convinced would be perfectly effectual as a protection. At the same time few persons who have not seen the effect of a sea beating against f.a.gots will share in that conviction; what I recommend is, to form under the stern and along the exposed side of the vessel a ma.s.s of f.a.gots made of strong and long sticks, and used in the manner which has been so successfully practised in Holland and elsewhere, for the repair and protection of banks against the sea. The f.a.gots should be packed closely, and for a considerable thickness against the s.h.i.+p's side and up to the level of the decks, and secured with rods run vertically through the ma.s.s, and chains laid horizontally and binding the whole tightly to the s.h.i.+p. The heaviest sea has no effect upon such a ma.s.s, and I believe the vessel would remain as uninjured and indeed as unaffected by the sea as if in dock; 8,000 or 10,000 f.a.gots, 300 or 400 fathoms of 1 inch or inch second-hand chain cable, none of which need be lost, 300 or 400 inch rods sharpened at the ends, 1,000 bags to fill with sand, with what stores you have on board, would suffice; and, if next coming springs and the gales which have hitherto accompanied them are safely pa.s.sed, I cannot foresee any difficulty whatever in the way of completing the protection I propose. Of course, in all works dependent upon wind, weather, and tides, certainty cannot be obtained; but of one thing I am quite certain, that no other plan offers the same chance of success, or at so small a cost. I have communicated to Captain Claxton the steps which I took, in conjunction with Captain Hosken, for procuring the f.a.gots before I left Dundrum; I have also communicated to him the directions which I gave with respect to the engines, &c., and it is unnecessary therefore that I should repeat them. I will only recapitulate in a few words the substance of the advice I have above given, and of my reasoning. You have a valuable piece of property lying on a most exposed sh.o.r.e; if preserved for a few months that property will in all probability be worth 40,000_l._ or 50,000_l._; if neglected for a few weeks longer it will probably be worth nothing. Can you, as men of business, under such circ.u.mstances, waste your time at this moment in discussing what you will do in three months hence, and what plan you will then adopt to take your property to market, but will you not rather first and immediately adopt decisive steps for preserving that property, and then consider what you had best do with it?

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 s.h.i.+p; 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 ma.s.s 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 apt.i.tude 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 a.s.sisted 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 circ.u.mstances 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 f.a.gots 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 f.a.got 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 f.a.gots--if a six-bundle f.a.got 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 s.h.i.+p 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 sh.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p. 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 f.a.gots 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 s.h.i.+p'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 s.h.i.+p. 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 f.a.gots 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 f.a.gots, 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 circ.u.mference near the b.u.t.ts, 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 s.h.i.+p'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 f.a.gots, 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 s.h.i.+p from the blows of the sea, and which I was instructed by Mr. Brunel to bring up to a point to the s.h.i.+p's gunwale in the form of a large poultice, occupying the whole s.p.a.ce 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 s.h.i.+p; and rarely were two layers placed without a repet.i.tion of the securing and weighting process all the while we had chains to use....

We were frequently beaten; whole ma.s.ses 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 s.h.i.+p was daily eased of the blows of the sea.... Finding the wind keeping on sh.o.r.e, the f.a.gots we placed shrinking, sinking, or settling down, and, notwithstanding the weights and las.h.i.+ngs, 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 f.a.gots, 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 f.a.gots 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 Downs.h.i.+re'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 s.h.i.+p, 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 subst.i.tute 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 b.u.t.t 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 s.h.i.+p from the screw, I applied smaller spars (easily and economically obtained from the Tyrella domain, or within half a mile of the s.h.i.+p) 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 f.a.got 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 f.a.gots without any shock to the s.h.i.+p worth speaking of. With respect to the f.a.gots, I could not find materials to go on weighting down as we went on piling up.... I therefore ran the remaining f.a.gots up light. No sooner, however, was this done, and a gale came on, than we were compelled to let go the las.h.i.+ngs, 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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce again.

About the 1st of May the progress made in lifting the s.h.i.+p 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 f.a.got 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 f.a.gots and stones, which are so embedded in sand as to form a ma.s.s 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 f.a.gots 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 f.a.gots 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 b.u.t.ts; and inside the walls of them, if I may so speak, whin (furze) bundles were to be weighted down, the f.a.gots placed in steps or rows of about 4 feet from the outside to the s.h.i.+p's gunwale.

As the summer came on, the mode of lifting and floating the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p.

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 s.h.i.+p, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 a.s.sistance. 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 s.h.i.+p....

I believe that, in such a case, quiet, sober consideration, a.s.sisted by experience, and by careful examination of all the circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sistance, and then lay his plans and proposals before the Directors.

Mr. Bremner and his son, a.s.sisted by Captain Claxton, made preparations for releasing the s.h.i.+p. The system followed was that sketched out by Mr.

Brunel--namely, that of lifting the s.h.i.+p 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 princ.i.p.al leak was stopped, and the s.h.i.+p's head raised 8 feet 7 inches by ramming wedges and stones under her at high water. At last, on August 27, the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps 'Birkenhead' and 'Victory,' which had been sent by the Admiralty to a.s.sist, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p was only kept afloat by the exertions of Captain Claxton and the dockyard hands who had been sent to a.s.sist 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 s.h.i.+p of iron, and to fit her with the screw propeller.