[185] The _Great Britain_ was launched on the 19th of July 1843. The machinery was constructed in the works of the company, as no engineers could be found willing to undertake the task by contract. But, by putting the engines into the vessel at the works, it was found that she was so deeply immersed as to be unable to pass out of the dock, and she was, consequently, detained for some months until the requisite alterations could be made for her release. Soon after her experimental trip, made on the 12th December, 1844, she was placed on the American station. Her career, however, was prematurely brought to a close by an accident (stranded on the coast of Ireland) which, though occasioning a serious loss to her enterprising owners, proved at this early stage the great strength and value of iron ships. During the whole winter that she lay on the beach at Dundrum Bay, coast of Ireland, she sustained very little injury, and though frequently altered and under repair since then, the _Great Britain_ is still successfully employed in the trade between Liverpool and Australia, and to all appearance is as sound a vessel as she was when launched thirty-one years ago. [186] Mr. R. B. Forbes, of Milton, Massachusetts, in forwarding to the author the lithograph of his ship, remarks: “The lower yards and the topgallant yard are in the same position as in the ordinary rig; but the topsail and topgallant sail are so divided as to make three sails instead of two. The topsail being exactly of the size of an ordinary double reefed topsail, the yard being parrelled to the heel of the topmast, where the topmasts are fidded forward of the lower mast-head; and to the head of the lower mast where the topmasts are (as they ought to be) fidded abaft the mast-head; this renders it necessary to have the lower mast-heads longer, by several feet, than in the old rig. The next sail above the topsail, representing the upper half of the topsail of the old rig and a fraction of the old topgallant sail, is called the topgallant sail, and the old rig topgallant sail is in the new rig called the royal, while the royal of the old rig becomes the skysail of the new rig. As I consider it important to have the sail as much in the body of the ship as possible, and at the same time to dispose of the canvas and spars that the sails can be used in different places, I make the foreyard of the same length (excepting a slight difference in the yardarms) as the main topsail yard; the fore topsail yard the same as the main topgallant yard, the fore topgallant yard the same as the main royal yard, and so on with the mizen, so that the yards and sails on the fore fit on the main one stage higher up, those on the mizen fit on the fore one stage higher and on the main two higher.”