Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

The pilot cutters were then privately owned and as there was much competition to reach a vessel the cutters would often sail as far as Lundy Island to meet a ship.

Tug boats were also needed to help manoeuvre the vessels through the Cefn-y-Wrach Shoal and to berths in the dock. About 1837 the tug "Primrose” was bought from the Bute Docks Company, and she was the first tug to operate in Penarth Dock.

The tugs "Falcon" and "Bantam" towed Scott's "Terra Nova" from Roath Dock out to the channel in June 1910. In 1860 two pilots refused to take certain vessels out through the Cefn-y-Wrach shoal.  [614]

In 1913 a Pilotage Act applicable to the whole country was passed to consolidate the law relating to Pilotage, and under the provisions of this Act, the Steam Pilot Boat Company (Cardiff and Bristol Channel) Ltd., was formed. This company acquired the 63 privately owned Pilot Cutters operated by 96 licensed pilots for approximately £19,000.

On 6th February 1886 a ship combining steam and sail left No. 9 tip at Penarth Dock for Panama via Cape Horn after coaling. One of the tippers was John Tidball who had come from Devon to work at Penarth Dock when it opened. It was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s ship "Great Britain”, and was the world ’s first ocean going propeller driven iron steamship.

The ship originally had one funnel and six short masts. Later she had four masts and eventually three. The ship made her first transatlantic voyage in July 1845 when she sailed 3,300 miles in 14 days 21 hours. "Great Britain” ran aground in Dundrum Bay, County Down, Ireland in September 1846, but was refloated and brought back to Liverpool in August 1847, where she was reconditioned and two masts removed.

The ship made her first voyage to Australia in 1852, took troops to the Crimean War in 1855 and 1856, and also reinforcements to India during the Mutiny of 1857. In 1886 as ’’Great Britain” tried to round Cape Horn after leaving Penarth she ran into hurricane force winds, the cargo shifted and leaks appeared so the captain turned back to Port Stanley, Falkland Islands. It was considered too costly to make repairs, and she was abandoned.