THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411240670
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: George Tucker
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
About eight months before Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, 1861, the Great Eastern, the largest vessel built until that time, steamed proudly into Hampton Roads and anchored in the channel between Fort Monroe and Fort Calhoun, now known as the Rip Raps.
A little over a month earlier, the ship had arrived in New York harbor after completing its maiden voyage from Southampton, England.
After remaining in Manhattan waters through July 1860, where ``the monster of the waters'' was visited by hundreds of thousands of gawking spectators, the Great Eastern headed southward for Hampton Roads. There had been some concern as to whether the water in the Roads would be deep enough to accommodate such a deep draught vessel, but a Hampton pilot brought it in with flying colors, using without incident the channel that passes Cape Henry.
The Great Eastern's arrival in Norfolk-area waters kicked up a lot of interest. An estimated 50,000 curious people crowded into every conceivable conveyance and flocked to the Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton areas to get a look at ``the wonder of the age.''
As one local newspaper reported the event: ``The hotels of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and of Hampton and Old Point, were literally packed with visitors, and yet there were hundreds who could get no place to sleep each night the ship remained in the Roads.''
The Great Eastern arrived in Hampton Roads about 6 p.m. on Aug. 8, 1860, with a ``superior band on board'' blaring away at ``Hail Columbia.''
Meanwhile, every scrap of colored bunting available flapped gaily from the rigging of the dozens of smaller vessels that had turned out to welcome their big sister. Thousands of less fortunate spectators also lined the nearby shores to greet the ship that was the fruition of the dreams of Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), the greatest engineer of his day.
Brunel began his career by building bridges. He then turned to shipbuilding, designing increasingly larger vessels such as the Great Western (1838), the Great Britain (1843), and the Great Eastern (1858). These revolutionary ships succeeded in advancing nautical design from the sailing vessels of Brunel's forefather's time to great iron ships with screw propulsion.
Two days after arriving in Hampton Roads, the Great Eastern's 58-foot paddle wheels churned up the mud of its anchorage, and the vessel headed up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis, Md. It remained there for nine days, attracting thousands of spectators, among them President James Buchanan and his Cabinet. The vessel then returned to New York, and from there to England.
Advanced for its times, the Great Eastern was such a colossal vessel it exceeded anything on the high seas until the ill-fated Lusitania was built in 1906. A crew-paddled bark, it had six masts carrying 6,500 square yards of sail, was 679.6 feet long, and had a displacement of 22,500 tons. Launched by hydraulic rams into the Thames River near London in January 1858, it set out on the maiden voyage to New York City in June 1860.
The great iron ship had a lengthy but tragic career. It killed its designer from overwork and anxiety, ruined the builder, drowned its captain, bankrupted seven companies, lost two million British pounds, injured hundreds and killed 35 crewmen, laid the first Atlantic cable, caused 13 lawsuits, attracted well over two million visitors, gave New York City and the Norfolk area their first wild ship-welcoming parties, started international quarrels and was not outbuilt for 48 years. It ended its days ignominiously as a floating circus.
Even so, when the Great Eastern was finally dismantled in 1889, it took two years to reduce it to scrap. The vessel was the heftiest sailor's sweetheart of its age. by CNB