Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of Engineers Book 1) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2017-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Brunel the Shipbuilder

“If all goes well, we shall all gain credit . . . if the results disappoint anybody . . . I shall have to bear the storm.”

—Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Brunel had positioned to the GWR board the possibility of extending the Bristol-London line overseas by having a steamship take passengers from Bristol to New York. He was persuasive enough for three members of the GWR board to set up a committee to investigate the proposal. A prospectus for the Great Western Steamship Company was issued on March 3, 1836, proposing the construction of two paddle-powered steamships.

The first ship began construction in 1836 in Bristol’s Floating Harbour. It was the longest keel ever laid and would become a huge vessel bearing the name Great Western. It passed its engine trials, though not without incident and successfully crossed the Atlantic, becoming the second steam-powered ship to do so. The Great Western went on to be an immediate commercial success, making sixty-seven transatlantic crossings in its eight-year career.

Work began on a second steamship of even bigger design. But a technological innovation caught Brunel’s imagination leading to a complete turnaround for the project. The Great Western had been a paddle steamer (engines turning a large paddle wheel to propel the ship) as was her sister ship supposed to have been. But in May 1840 a propeller-driven steamship, the Archimedes, was moored at Bristol. Brunel came to realize how much more efficient a means of propulsion a fully immersed propeller was and decided that the new ship would need to be propeller-driven.

An experimental prototype, the Rattler, was developed for the Navy, which provided a useful proof of concept by winning a “tug of war” contest against a paddle steamer. Brunel himself designed the marine engine that would drive the Great Western’s successor. He used a design patented by none other than Marc Isambard Brunel.

The venture proved costly, more than double the cost of the Great Western. It is testament to Brunel’s reputation, buoyed by the success of the GWR and the Great Western that the company was still able to attract sufficient investors to complete the project. On August 19, 1843, the Great Britain was launched. She was, at that time, the largest ship in the world, with a displacement of over 3600 tons. It would be two years before the Great Britain was ready to make her maiden transatlantic crossing, which began on July 26, 1845, from Liverpool.

Her maiden voyage was completed in fifteen days, and this was improved to thirteen days on a later trip, matching her sister ship’s record. She would undertake only four successful journeys, however. During her fifth, on September 22, 1845, she ran aground off the coast of Ireland. It would be the death knell for the ship, as the cost of towing her off the sandbank she was stranded on, as well as making the necessary repairs to her hull were beyond the finances of the Great Western Steamship Company. They auctioned the fixtures and fittings and subsequently the ship itself was sold.

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