When the gale had settled, we returned again, and found that no harm had been done. The remainder of the hooks were properly attached to the rest of the tanks, the chains were screwed tightly up, and the tanks were pumped clear. Then the tide rose;and before high water we had the great satisfaction of getting the body of the vessel under weigh, and towing her about a cable's length from her old bed. At each tide's work she was lifted higher and higher, and towed into shallower water towards Belfast; until at length we had her, after eight days, safely in the harbour, ready to enter the graving dock,--not more ready, however, than we all were for our beds, for we had neither undressed nor shaved during that anxious time. Indeed, our friends scarcely recognised us on our return home.
The result of the enterprise was this. The clean cut made into the bow of the ship by the collision was soon repaired. The crop of oysters with which she was incrusted gave place to the scraper and the paintbrush. The Wolf came out of the dock to the satisfaction both of the owners and underwriters; and she was soon "ready for the road," nothing the worse for her ten months'
immersion.[2]
Meanwhile the building of new iron ships went on in the Queen's Island. We were employed by another Liverpool Company--the British Shipowners' Company, Limited--to supply some large steamers. The British Empire, of 3361 gross tonnage, was the same class of vessel as those of the White Star line, but fuller, being intended for cargo. Though originally intended for the Eastern trade, this vessel was eventually placed on the Liverpool and Philadelphia line; and her working proved so satisfactory that five more vessels were ordered like her, which were chartered to the American Company.
The Liverpool agents, Messrs. Richardson, Spence, and Co., having purchased the Cunard steamer Russia, sent her over to us to be lengthened 70 feet, and entirely refitted--another proof of the rapid change which owners of merchant ships now found it necessary to adopt in view of the requirements of modern traffic.
Another Liverpool firm, the Messrs. T. and J. Brocklebank, of world-wide repute for their fine East Indiamen, having given up building for themselves at their yard at Whitehaven, commissioned us to build for them the Alexandria, and Baroda, which were shortly followed by the Candahar and Tenasserim. And continuing to have a faith in the future of big iron sailing ships, they further employed us to build for them two of yet greater tonnage, the Belfast and the Majestic.
Indeed, there is a future for sailing ships, notwithstanding the recent development of steam power. Sailing ships can still hold their own, especially in the transport of heavy merchandise for great distances. They can be built more cheaply than steamers;they can be worked more economically, because they require no expenditure on coal, nor on wages of engineers; besides, the space occupied in steamers by machinery is entirely occupied by merchandise, all of which pays its quota of freight. Another thing may be mentioned: the telegraph enables the fact of the sailing of a vessel, with its cargo on board, to be communicated from Calcutta or San Francisco to Liverpool, and from that moment the cargo becomes as marketable as if it were on the spot. There are cases, indeed, where the freight by sailing ship is even greater than by steamer, as the charge for warehousing at home is saved, and in the meantime the cargo while at sea is negotiable.
We have accordingly, during the last few years, built some of the largest iron and steel sailing ships that have ever gone to sea.
