RMS Tayleur

## Royal Mail Ship Tayleur

Tayleur with all sails hosted

Royal Mail Ship Tayleur was the 8th ship of the original White Star Line and the first to bear the title RMS. She was the largest ship in the world at the time of her launch, but sadly grounded and sunk on the 21st January 1854. Although still a very unknown story, it is one of the best documented early White Star Liners from the pre-Thomas Ismay era.

## Construction

Construction on the Tayleur began in April 1853 and only took 6 months. It was built in Warrington, England by William Rennie of Rennie & Johnson for the Charles & Moore Company. The ship was launched on the 4th October 1853 into the River Mersey with a length of 70 metres (230 Feet), a beam of 20 metres (40 feet) and a depth of 6.4 metres (21 feet). It was surprisingly modern in things like safety for its time, containing 5 watertight compartments in its hull. Her namesake also came from Charles Tayleur, who was the founder of the Vulcan Engineering Works. Charles & Moore managed to secure a deal with the Royal Mail Company to have the ship transport mail across the ocean, the first of their ships to do so. The Warrington Guardian said "A vessel is rising to astonish Liverpool and make even the shipbuilders of our generation look grave" after observing the launch.  Tayleur's future captain, John Noble, actually almost died while falling into the ship's hold just after the launch, but he somehow survived and made a full recovery. While the speed of the ship's construction was extremely impressive for the time, this was not entirely a good thing. Many design flaws slipped through the cracks due to the fact that the ship had no sea trials. These issues included:

* Unbalanced masts.
* Rudder was undersized making it harder to turn.
* Ropes were so tight that they were extremely hard to pull and move.
* Ship's iron hull messed up the compass readings.

## Crew Issues

Of all 70 crew onboard the Tayleur, 37 of them were not regarded as experienced sailors and 10 of them didn't even speak English.

Captain Townson was regarded as the most experienced member of the crew onboard, but he swapped out with the younger Captain John Noble after they arrived in Liverpool.

## Fate

### Maiden Voyage

Tayleur sailed down the River Mersey towards Liverpool on the 18th January 1854. Upon reaching Liverpool it picked up a full complement of 652 passengers and crew. It was towed out into open waters at midday on the 19th January 1854, where it dropped its sails and set out towards Melbourne. The weather was rainy and cloudy, but it wasn't anything too serious by this point. From the moment the ship left port, an issue unknown to the crew came up. Every time they took a compass reading, it was extremely off due to the iron of the hull interfering with it. As iron hulled ships were a relatively new thing by this time, this problem was completely unknown to the crew and they continued to believe the false readings. Upon reaching fully open waters they intended to head south and out of the Irish Sea where they'd continue down the coast of Africa, but this is not what happened. Their compass reading made them head west, straight towards the eastern coast of Ireland just south of Dublin. Fog descended over the ship that night, something that continued throughout the voyage.

### Collision

At 11:00 in the morning on the 21st January 1854, the Tayleur's lookout spotted white foam breaking over rocks in the fog. With the harsh winds giving them full momentum and their critically undersized rudder, the ship could barely turn on a good say, let alone in the middle of a storm. Tayleur slammed full speed into the rocks, creating a huge gash in the iron hull and swinging the ship's stern around, jamming the ship into the cliff edge. The ship only stayed wedged in the cliff face for a minute or two at most before it slipped off and back into the raging sea again where the waves continued to break it up against the rocks.

As the ship continued to roll and pitch, crew ran below decks to retrieve axes, many did not return, but the few who did played a vital role in the saviour of those onboard that night. Tayleur was so close to land that the crew were able to break down the unbalanced masts with the axes, letting them fall onto the cliff face and serve as ladders to the shore. Those who did make it up onto deck were mostly too afraid to even attempt to climb the masts, but a few did and they set off for a potential rescue.

1. ↑ https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/23459679.story-tayleur-ship-lwhich-built-warrington/