The Floating Hareem!

Image: In order to keep onboard temperatures as low as possible the Great Eastern, whilst laying the 1870 Porthcurno to Bombay cable, was painted white, reducing the temperature by up to 8 degrees

After the 1885 and 1886 cable expeditions various individuals were interested in using the Great Eastern including his Transcendental Highness, Sultan Abdul-Aziz of turkey who wanted to convert the Great Eastern into a giant floating harem. This wonderful idea never came to fruition as in the end Napoleon the Third chartered the Great Eastern to ferry American visitors across the Atlantic to the Exposition Universelle de Paris, which was to be held in1867. The ship underwent another complete refit. All the cable tanks were replaced with extravagant saloons and lavish cabins, the paying-out gear and pick-up gear were cleared away and the missing funnel was replaced. 3 men were killed on the voyage itself bringing the total number of deaths to 27. The famous science fiction author Jules Verne was a passenger on that voyage. He took the voyage just to see the Great Eastern and suspended the writing of the now famous Twenty Thousand leagues Under the Sea to write the not so famous Floating City, which was based on his experiences aboard the Great Eastern. After just one voyage for Napoleon, the lavish interiors were once again ripped out as the Great Eastern prepared to lay a telegraph cable, for the news company Reuters Ltd, from France to Newfoundland. With its tenth captain, Captain Halpin, the Great Eastern continued its career as a cable layer. During its 9 cable laying years starting in 1865 and ending in 1874, the Great Eastern made 5 trans-Atlantic voyages, she laid 3600 miles across the Indian Ocean as part of the ‘All red Line’ from Porthcurno in the UK to Bombay as well as a cable from Singapore to Penang, the Australia to Java and the Java to Sumatra cables as well as cable from Madeira to Brazil as well as numerous shorter lengths, which amounts in all to a total of 26,000 miles of cable. In 1874 the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company commissioned and launched the C.S. Faraday, which represented the beginning of purpose built, hi-tech cable ships and symbolised the end for the Great Eastern. Daniel Gooch wrote at the time “it may be a long time before I sail in the old ship again”. As it turned out it would be his and Captain Halpin’s last voyage on the ship.