World of Innovation

The first attempt at a transatlantic cable was in 1857 as a joint enterprise between England and the United States. Twenty five hundred nautical miles of cable was designed, manufactured and loaded upon two ships, as no single ship was able to handle such a great load. The engineers / scientists among the expedition included Charles Bright, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), Edward Whitehouse and Samuel Morse. Starting from Valentia Bay Ireland, they laid four hundred miles of cable before it broke and vanished under the sea. Cyrus Field signaled the ships of the expedition to meet, to discuss the matter, review what had been learned so far and do experiments; afterwards they returned to England.

In 1858 the second expedition commenced, the chief engineer was William Everett, who designed a new ‘paying out’ machine for laying the cable; they had determined the original machine had caused the first failure by braking two hard causing the cable to break in two. The other engineers were Charles Bright, Samuel Canning, William Thomson and C.V. de Sauty. Cyrus Field again led the expedition and this year two ships each carrying half the cable met in the mid north Atlantic, spliced the cable ends and laid cable in both directions simultaneously. As the cable was laid, an electrician aboard ship on each end tested the cable. A terrific storm buffeted the fleet and nearly sank the Agamemnon, pushing her off course by 200 miles. After the storm was over, the fleet met and reviewed damages. It was decided to abandon the cable so far laid and lost, and start over, figuring there was sufficient cable left to complete the project.

After laying approximately 150 miles in each direction, the cable broke and was lost again. A review showed the cable failed at a place where it had been damaged in the storm (from sliding and crashing on deck). Still undaunted, Field returned to London to get supplies to restart the cable laying again, albeit some of the directors gave up hope and resigned from the company. On July 29th, 1858 the ships met and spliced the cable in the mid Atlantic, again. Through much effort and many trials, the cable was successfully landed in Trinity Bay Newfoundland on August 5th, 1858.

Cyrus Field again led the expedition, as well as coordinating the funding for it.

With the European end of the cable landed in Ireland, the Great Eastern began laying out cable on July 23rd, 1865. The cable laying operation went much smoother than before and the principal difficulties were with the cable itself. From time to time faults were detected, with each fault detected the cable was cut, retrieved back on board, repaired and spliced before resuming the paying out of the cable. When the expedition was within 600 miles of Newfoundland, another fault was detected, during the retrieval of the cable it broke and vanished, again, under the sea.

Chief engineer Canning determined to retrieve the broken cable by using lengths of wire rope connected together with shackles and terminated with a grappling hook. Captain Anderson navigated the ship to the east and south of where the cable lay, Canning lowered the hook to the bottom of the sea, the ship steamed northward until the cable was hooked. The cable was raised until a shackle broke; sending the cable and a length of the wire rope to the ocean floor. The process was repeated with some adjustments in the technique, each attempt failing, until they were out of wire rope. There was not enough cable left to start over, so the expedition returned to England, a failure, yet again.

Learning from the 1865 expedition, changes were made in the cable design, to the cable paying out machine and to the Great Eastern itself. With these changes the crew could retrieve the cable by running the paying-out machine in reverse without snagging the cable in the ship’s propeller.

With the shore end of the cable landed in Ireland, the Great Eastern started out on the inauspicious day of July 13th 1866, a Friday. The chief engineer was Samuel Canning, the chief electrician Willoughby Smith and consultant William Thomson. By Tuesday the 24th of July, the Great Eastern had passed the point where the 1865 cable had broken; traveling 60 miles to the south of it, for the expedition had plans to retrieve the 1865 cable and did not want the two cables close to each other for the grappling procedure. On July 27th, 1866 the cable was spliced with the shore-end at Heart’s Content Newfoundland, the cable was laid. Cyrus Field sent the following report to New York, ‘Heart’s Content, July 27 – we arrived here at nine o’clock this morning. All well. Thank God, the cable is laid, and is in perfect working order. Cyrus W Field.” [Field, Henry M. 1893. “The Story of the Atlantic Telegraph.” p. 344.]