
A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of
steam-powered vessel
Steam-powered vessels include steamboats and steamships. Smaller steamboats were developed first. They were replaced by larger steamships which were often ocean-going. Steamships required a change in propulsion technology from sail to paddlewhee ...
, typically ocean-faring and
seaworthy
Seakeeping ability or seaworthiness is a measure of how well-suited a watercraft is to conditions when underway. A ship or boat which has good seakeeping ability is said to be very seaworthy and is able to operate effectively even in high sea sta ...
, that is propelled by one or more
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
s that typically move (turn)
propeller
A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...
s or
paddlewheels. The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 19th century; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
designations of "PS" for ''paddle steamer'' or "SS" for ''screw steamer'' (using a propeller or screw). As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is incorrectly assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal comb ...
s use a prefix such as "MV" for ''motor vessel'', so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.
As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as a "major driver of the first wave of trade
globalization
Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
(1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history".
History
Steamships were preceded by smaller vessels, called
steamboat
A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels worki ...
s, conceived in the first half of the 18th century by
Denis Papin
Denis Papin FRS (; 22 August 1647 – 26 August 1713) was a French physicist, mathematician and inventor, best known for his pioneering invention of the steam digester, the forerunner of the pressure cooker, the steam engine, the centrifug ...
, with the first working steamboat and
paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...
, the ''
Pyroscaphe
''Pyroscaphe'' was an early experimental steamship built by Marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans in 1783. The first demonstration took place on 15 July 1783 on the river Saône in France. After the first demonstration, it was said that the hull had ope ...
'', from 1783. Once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the technology changed the design of ships for faster, more economic propulsion.
Paddle
A paddle is a handheld tool with an elongated handle and a flat, widened end (the ''blade'') used as a lever to apply force onto the bladed end. It most commonly describes a completely handheld tool used to propel a human-powered watercraft by p ...
wheels as the main motive source became standard on these early vessels. It was an effective means of propulsion under ideal conditions but otherwise had serious drawbacks. The paddle-wheel performed best when it operated at a certain depth, however when the depth of the ship changed from added weight it further submerged the paddle wheel causing a substantial decrease in performance.
Within a few decades of the development of the river and canal steamboat, the first steamships began to cross the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...
. The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat ''Experiment'', an ex-French
lugger
A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or more masts. Luggers were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland. Luggers varied extensively ...
; she steamed from
Leeds
Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...
to
Yarmouth in July 1813.
The first iron steamship to go to sea was the 116-ton ''
Aaron Manby
''Aaron Manby'' was a landmark vessel in the science of shipbuilding as the first iron steamship to go to sea. She was built by Aaron Manby (1776–1850) at the Horseley Ironworks. She made the voyage to Paris in June 1822 under Captain (late ...
'', built in 1821 by
Aaron Manby
''Aaron Manby'' was a landmark vessel in the science of shipbuilding as the first iron steamship to go to sea. She was built by Aaron Manby (1776–1850) at the Horseley Ironworks. She made the voyage to Paris in June 1822 under Captain (late ...
at the
Horseley Ironworks
The Horseley Ironworks (sometimes spelled Horsley) was a major ironworks in the Tipton area in the county of Staffordshire, now the West Midlands, England.
History
Founded by Aaron Manby, it is most famous for constructing the first iron s ...
, and became the first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed the
English Channel
The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...
in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June.
She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of .

The American ship first crossed the Atlantic Ocean arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819, although most of the voyage was actually made under sail. The first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power may have been the British-built Dutch-owned ''Curaçao'', a wooden 438-ton vessel built in
Dover
Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...
and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from
Hellevoetsluis
Hellevoetsluis () is a town and former municipality in the west of Netherlands. It is located in Voorne-Putten, South Holland. The former municipality covered an area of of which was water and it included the population centres of Nieuw-Helvoe ...
, near
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
on 26 April 1827 to
Paramaribo
Paramaribo ( , , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's p ...
,
Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on the way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship in 1833.
The first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings was the British side-wheel paddle steamer built by
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel ( ; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history", "one of the 19th-century engi ...
in 1838, which inaugurated the era of the trans-Atlantic
ocean liner
An ocean liner is a type of passenger ship primarily used for transportation across seas or oceans. Ocean liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes (such as for pleasure cruises or as hospital ships). The ...
.
, built in Britain in 1839 by
Francis Pettit Smith, was the world's first
screw propeller
A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...
-driven steamship for open water seagoing. She had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
, in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. The first screw-driven propeller steamship introduced in America was on a ship built by
Thomas Clyde in 1844 and many more ships and routes followed.
Screw-propeller steamers
The key innovation that made ocean-going steamers viable was the change from the paddle-wheel to the
screw-propeller as the mechanism of propulsion. These steamships quickly became more popular, because the propeller's efficiency was consistent regardless of the depth at which it operated. Being smaller in size and mass and being completely submerged, it was also far less prone to damage.
James Watt
James Watt (; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819) was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was f ...
of Scotland is widely given credit for applying the first screw propeller to an engine at his
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
works, an early
steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...
, beginning the use of a
hydrodynamic
In physics, physical chemistry and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids – liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including (the study of air and other gases in moti ...
screw for propulsion.
The development of screw propulsion relied on the following technological innovations.
Steam engines had to be designed with the power delivered at the bottom of the machinery, to give direct drive to the
propeller shaft. A paddle steamer's engines drive a shaft that is positioned above the waterline, with the cylinders positioned below the shaft. used chain drive to transmit power from a paddler's engine to the propeller shaft – the result of a late design change to propeller propulsion.
An effective
stern tube and associated bearings were required. The stern tube contains the propeller shaft where it passes through the hull structure. It should provide an unrestricted delivery of power by the propeller shaft. The combination of hull and stern tube must avoid any flexing that will bend the shaft or cause uneven wear. The inboard end has a
stuffing box
A stuffing box or gland package is an assembly which is used to house a gland seal. It is used to prevent leakage of fluid, such as water or steam, between sliding or turning parts of machine elements.
Components
A stuffing box of a sailing boat ...
that prevents water from entering the hull along the tube. Some early stern tubes were made of brass and operated as a water lubricated bearing along the entire length. In other instances a long bush of soft metal was fitted in the after end of the stern tube. had this arrangement fail on her first transatlantic voyage, with very large amounts of uneven wear. The problem was solved with a
lignum vitae water-lubricated bearing, patented in 1858. This became standard practice and is in use today.
Since the motive power of screw propulsion is delivered along the shaft, a
thrust bearing
A thrust bearing is a particular type of rotary bearing. Like other bearings they permanently rotate between parts, but they are designed to support a predominantly axial load.
Thrust bearings come in several varieties.
*''Thrust ball bearing ...
is needed to transfer that load to the hull without excessive friction. had a 2 ft diameter gunmetal plate on the forward end of the shaft which bore against a steel plate attached to the engine beds. Water at 200
psi
Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to:
Alphabetic letters
* Psi (Greek) (Ψ or ψ), the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet
* Psi (Cyrillic), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek
Arts and entertainment
* "Psi" as an abbreviat ...
was injected between these two surfaces to lubricate and separate them. This arrangement was not sufficient for higher engine powers and oil lubricated "collar" thrust bearings became standard from the early 1850s. This was superseded at the beginning of the 20th century by floating pad bearing which automatically built up wedges of oil which could withstand bearing pressures of 500
psi
Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to:
Alphabetic letters
* Psi (Greek) (Ψ or ψ), the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet
* Psi (Cyrillic), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek
Arts and entertainment
* "Psi" as an abbreviat ...
or more.
Name prefix
Steam-powered ships were named with a prefix designating their propeller configuration i.e. single, twin, triple-screw. Single-screw Steamship SS, Twin-Screw Steamship TSS, Triple-Screw Steamship TrSS. Steam turbine-driven ships had the prefix TS. In the UK the prefix RMS for Royal Mail Steamship overruled the screw configuration prefix.
First ocean-going steamships
The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe was the American ship , though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship, with the first half of the journey making use of the steam engine. ''Savannah'' left the port of
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Brita ...
, US, on 22 May 1819, arriving in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
, England, on 20 June 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours). A claimant to the title of the first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power is the British-built Dutch-owned ''Curaçao'', a wooden 438-ton vessel built in
Dover
Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...
and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from
Hellevoetsluis
Hellevoetsluis () is a town and former municipality in the west of Netherlands. It is located in Voorne-Putten, South Holland. The former municipality covered an area of of which was water and it included the population centres of Nieuw-Helvoe ...
, near
Rotterdam
Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...
on 26 April 1827 to
Paramaribo
Paramaribo ( , , ) is the capital city, capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's p ...
,
Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on the way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship in 1833.
The British side-wheel paddle steamer was the first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings, starting in 1838. In 1836 Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a group of Bristol investors formed the Great Western Steamship Company to build a line of steamships for the Bristol-New York route.
The idea of regular scheduled transatlantic service was under discussion by several groups and the rival
British and American Steam Navigation Company was established at the same time.
''Great Western's'' design sparked controversy from critics that contended that she was too big.
[ The principle that Brunel understood was that the carrying capacity of a hull increases as the cube of its dimensions, while water resistance only increases as the square of its dimensions. This meant that large ships were more fuel efficient, something very important for long voyages across the Atlantic.]
''Great Western'' was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep the ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line. The hull was built of oak by traditional methods. She was the largest steamship for one year, until the British and American's ''British Queen'' went into service. Built at the shipyard of Patterson & Mercer in Bristol, ''Great Western'' was launched on 19 July 1837 and then sailed to London, where she was fitted with two side-lever steam engines from the firm of Maudslay, Sons & Field, producing 750 indicated horsepower between them. The ship proved satisfactory in service and initiated the transatlantic route, acting as a model for all following Atlantic paddle-steamers.
The Cunard Line
The Cunard Line ( ) is a British shipping and an international cruise line based at Carnival House at Southampton, England, operated by Carnival UK and owned by Carnival Corporation & plc. Since 2011, Cunard and its four ships have been r ...
's began her first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship in 1840, sailing from Liverpool to Boston.
In 1845 the revolutionary , also built by Brunel, became the first iron-hulled screw-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. SS ''Great Britain'' was the first ship to combine these two innovations. After the initial success of its first liner, of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company assembled the same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully before. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation was at its height, came to assert overall control over design of the ship—a state of affairs that would have far-reaching consequences for the company. Construction was carried out in a specially adapted dry dock
A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...
in Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...
, England.
Brunel was given a chance to inspect John Laird's (English) channel packet ship
Packet boats were medium-sized boats designed mainly for domestic mail and freight transport in European countries and in North American rivers and canals. Eventually including basic passenger accommodation, they were used extensively during t ...
''Rainbow''—the largest iron- hulled ship then in service—in 1838, and was soon converted to iron-hulled technology. He scrapped his plans to build a wooden ship and persuaded the company directors to build an iron-hulled ship. Iron's advantages included being much cheaper than wood, not being subject to dry rot
Dry rot is wood decay caused by one of several species of fungi that digest parts of wood which give it strength and stiffness. It was previously used to describe any decay of cured wood in ships and buildings by a fungus which resulted in a ...
or woodworm
A woodworm is the Xylophagy, wood-eating larva of many species of beetle. It is also a generic description given to the infestation of a wooden item (normally part of a dwelling or the furniture in it) by these larvae.
Types of woodworm
Woodbo ...
, and its much greater structural strength. The practical limit on the length of a wooden-hulled ship is about 300 feet, after which hogging—the flexing of the hull as waves pass beneath it—becomes too great. Iron hulls are far less subject to hogging, so that the potential size of an iron-hulled ship is much greater.
In the spring of 1840 Brunel also had the opportunity to inspect , the first screw-propelled steamship, completed only a few months before by F. P. Smith's Propeller Steamship Company. Brunel had been looking into methods of improving the performance of ''Great Britain''s paddlewheels, and took an immediate interest in the new technology, and Smith, sensing a prestigious new customer for his own company, agreed to lend ''Archimedes'' to Brunel for extended tests. Over several months, Smith and Brunel tested a number of different propellers on ''Archimedes'' in order to find the most efficient design, a four-bladed model submitted by Smith. When launched in 1843, ''Great Britain'' was by far the largest vessel afloat.
Brunel's last major project, , was built in 1854–1857 with the intent of linking Great Britain with India, via the Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
, without any coaling stops. This ship was arguably more revolutionary than her predecessors. She was one of the first ships to be built with a double hull with watertight compartments and was the first liner to have four funnels. She was the biggest liner throughout the rest of the 19th century with a gross tonnage of almost 20,000 tons and had a passenger-carrying capacity of thousands. The ship was ahead of her time and went through a turbulent history, never being put to her intended use. The first transatlantic steamer built of steel was , built by Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers
The Allan Shipping Line was started in 1819, by Alexander Allan (ship-owner), Captain Alexander Allan of Saltcoats, Ayrshire, trading and transporting between Scotland and Montreal, a route which quickly became synonymous with the Allan Line. By ...
and entering service in 1879.
The first regular steamship service from the East Coast to the West Coast of the United States
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast and the Western Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the Contiguous United States, contig ...
began on 28 February 1849, with the arrival of in San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
. The ''California'' left New York Harbor
New York Harbor is a bay that covers all of the Upper Bay. It is at the mouth of the Hudson River near the East River tidal estuary on the East Coast of the United States.
New York Harbor is generally synonymous with Upper New York Bay, ...
on 6 October 1848, rounded Cape Horn
Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...
at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California, after a four-month and 21-day journey. The first steamship to operate on the Pacific Ocean was the paddle steamer ''Beaver'', launched in 1836 to service Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...
trading posts between Puget Sound
Puget Sound ( ; ) is a complex estuary, estuarine system of interconnected Marine habitat, marine waterways and basins located on the northwest coast of the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As a part of the Salish Sea, the sound ...
Washington and Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
.
Long-distance commercial steamships
The most testing route for steam was from Britain or the East Coast of the U.S. to the Far East
The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...
. The distance from either is roughly the same, between , traveling down the Atlantic, around the southern tip of Africa, and across the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
.[ Before 1866, no steamship could carry enough coal to make this voyage and have enough space left to carry a commercial cargo.
A partial solution to this problem was adopted by the ]Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company
P&O (in full, The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company) was a British shipping and logistics company dating from the early 19th century. Formerly a public company, it was sold to DP World in March 2006 for £3.9 billion. DP World ...
(P&O), using an overland section between Alexandria
Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...
and Suez
Suez (, , , ) is a Port#Seaport, seaport city with a population of about 800,000 in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea, near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal. It is the capital and largest c ...
, with connecting steamship routes along the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
and then through the Red Sea
The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...
. While this worked for passengers and some high value cargo, sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. Most notable of these cargoes was tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...
, typically carried in clipper
A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century.
Clippers were generally narrow for their len ...
s.
Another partial solution was the Steam Auxiliary Ship – a vessel with a steam engine, but also rigged as a sailing vessel. The steam engine would only be used when conditions were unsuitable for sailing – in light or contrary winds. Some of this type (for instance ''Erl King'') were built with propellers that could be lifted clear of the water to reduce drag when under sail power alone. These ships struggled to be successful on the route to China, as the standing rigging required when sailing was a handicap when steaming into a head wind, most notably against the southwest monsoon when returning with a cargo of new tea. Though the auxiliary steamers persisted in competing in far eastern trade for a few years (and it was ''Erl King'' that carried the first cargo of tea through the Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
), they soon moved on to other routes.
What was needed was a big improvement in fuel efficiency. While the boilers for steam engines on land were allowed to run at high pressures, the Board of Trade
The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for Business and Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...
(under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854) would not allow ships to exceed . Compound engines were a known source of improved efficiency – but generally not used at sea due to the low pressures available. ''Carnatic'' (1863), a P&O ship, had a compound engine – and achieved better efficiency than other ships of the time. Her boilers ran at but relied on a substantial amount of superheat.[
Alfred Holt, who had entered marine engineering and ship management after an apprenticeship in railway engineering, experimented with boiler pressures of in ''Cleator''. Holt was able to persuade the Board of Trade to allow these boiler pressures and, in partnership with his brother Phillip launched ''Agamemnon'' in 1865. Holt had designed a particularly compact compound engine and taken great care with the hull design, producing a light, strong, easily driven hull.][
The efficiency of Holt's package of boiler pressure, compound engine and hull design gave a ship that could steam at 10 knots on 20 long tons of coal a day. This fuel consumption was a saving from between 23 and 14 long tons a day, compared to other contemporary steamers. Not only did less coal need to be carried to travel a given distance, but fewer firemen were needed to fuel the boilers, so crew costs and their accommodation space were reduced. ''Agamemnon'' was able to sail from London to China with a coaling stop at ]Mauritius
Mauritius, officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, about off the southeastern coast of East Africa, east of Madagascar. It includes the main island (also called Mauritius), as well as Rodrigues, Ag ...
on the outward and return journey, with a time on passage substantially less than the competing sailing vessels. Holt had already ordered two sister ships to ''Agamemnon'' by the time she had returned from her first trip to China in 1866, operating these ships in the newly formed Blue Funnel Line. His competitors rapidly copied his ideas for their own new ships.[
The opening of the ]Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...
in 1869 gave a distance saving of about on the route from China to London. The canal was not a practical option for sailing vessels, as using a tug was difficult and expensive – so this distance saving was not available to them.[ Steamships immediately made use of this new waterway and found themselves in high demand in China for the start of the 1870 tea season. The steamships were able to obtain a much higher rate of ]freight
In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...
than sailing ships and the insurance premium for the cargo was less. So successful were the steamers using the Suez Canal that, in 1871, 45 were built in Clyde shipyards alone for Far Eastern trade.
Triple expansion engines
Throughout the 1870s, compound-engined steamships and sailing vessels coexisted in an economic equilibrium: the operating costs of steamships were still too high in certain trades, so sail was the only commercial option in many situations. The compound engine, where steam was expanded twice in two separate cylinders, still had inefficiencies. The solution was the triple expansion engine, in which steam was successively expanded in a high pressure, intermediate pressure and a low pressure cylinder.
The theory of this was established in the 1850s by John Elder, but it was clear that triple expansion engines needed steam at, by the standards of the day, very high pressures. The existing boiler technology could not deliver this. Wrought iron could not provide the strength for the higher pressures. Steel became available in larger quantities in the 1870s, but the quality was variable. The overall design of boilers was improved in the early 1860s, with the Scotch-type boilers – but at that date these still ran at the lower pressures that were then current.
The first ship fitted with triple expansion engines was ''Propontis'' (launched in 1874). She was fitted with boilers that operated at – but these had technical problems and had to be replaced with ones that ran at . This substantially degraded performance.
There were a few further experiments until went into service on the route from Britain to Australia. Her triple expansion engine was designed by Dr A C Kirk, the engineer who had developed the machinery for ''Propontis''. The difference was the use of two double ended Scotch type steel boilers, running at . These boilers had patent corrugated furnaces that overcame the competing problems of heat transfer and sufficient strength to deal with the boiler pressure. ''Aberdeen'' was a marked success, achieving in trials, at 1,800 indicated horsepower, a fuel consumption of of coal per indicated horsepower. This was a reduction in fuel consumption of about 60%, compared to a typical steamer built ten years earlier. In service, this translated into less than 40 tons of coal a day when travelling at . Her maiden outward voyage to Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
took 42 days, with one coaling stop, carrying 4,000 tons of cargo.
Other similar ships were rapidly brought into service over the next few years. By 1885 the usual boiler pressure was and virtually all ocean-going steamships being built were ordered with triple expansion engines. Within a few years, new installations were running at . The tramp steamers that operated at the end of the 1880s could sail at with a fuel consumption of of coal per ton mile travelled. This level of efficiency meant that steamships could now operate as the primary method of maritime transport in the vast majority of commercial situations. In 1890, steamers constituted 57% of world's tonnage, and by World War I their share raised to 93%.[
]
Era of the ocean liner
By 1870 a number of inventions such as the screw propeller
A propeller (often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon a working flu ...
, the compound engine, and the triple-expansion engine
A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages.
A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure (HP) Cylinder (engine), cylinder, then ha ...
made trans-oceanic shipping on a large scale economically viable. In 1870 the White Star Line
The White Star Line was a British shipping line. Founded out of the remains of a defunct Packet trade, packet company, it gradually grew to become one of the most prominent shipping companies in the world, providing passenger and cargo service ...
’s set a new standard for ocean travel by having its first-class cabins amidships, with the added amenity of large portholes, electricity and running water. The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 to meet the needs of the human migration
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another, with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another ( ...
to the United States and Australia.
and her sister ship were the last two Cunard liners of the period to be fitted with auxiliary sails. Both ships were built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1884. They were record breakers by the standards of the time, and were the largest liners then in service, plying the Liverpool to New York route.
1900–present
After the demonstration by British engineer Charles Parsons of his steam turbine-driven yacht, ''Turbinia
''Turbinia'' is the first steam turbine-powered steamship. Built as an experimental vessel in 1894, and easily the fastest ship in the world at that time, ''Turbinia'' was demonstrated dramatically at the Fleet review (Commonwealth realms), Sp ...
'', in 1897, the use of steam turbines for propulsion quickly spread. The Cunard RMS ''Mauretania'', built in 1906 was one of the first ocean liners to use the steam turbine
A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...
(with a late design change shortly before her keel was laid down) and was soon followed by all subsequent liners.
was the largest steamship in the world when she sank in 1912; a subsequent major sinking of a steamer was that of the , as an act of World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
.
Launched in 1938, was the largest passenger steamship ever built. Launched in 1969, ''Queen Elizabeth 2
''Queen Elizabeth 2'' (''QE2'') is a retired British ocean liner. Built for the Cunard Line, the ship was operated as a transatlantic liner and cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. She was laid up until converted into a floating hotel, operating sin ...
'' (QE2) was the last passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a scheduled liner voyage before she was converted to diesels in 1986. The last major passenger ship built with steam turbines was the '' Fairsky'', launched in 1984, later ''Atlantic Star'', reportedly sold to Turkish shipbreakers in 2013.
Most luxury yachts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries were steam driven (see luxury yacht
A superyacht or megayacht is a large and luxurious pleasure vessel. There are no official or agreed upon definitions for such yachts, but these terms are regularly used to describe professionally crewed motor or sailing yachts, ranging from t ...
; also Cox & King yachts). Thomas Assheton Smith was an English aristocrat who forwarded the design of the steam yacht in conjunction with the Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier.
Decline of the steamship
By World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, steamers still constituted 73% of world's tonnage, and similar percentage remained in early 1950s.[ The decline of the steamship began soon thereafter. Many had been lost in the war, and marine ]diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...
s had finally matured as an economical and viable alternative to steam power. The diesel engine had far better thermal efficiency
In thermodynamics, the thermal efficiency (\eta_) is a dimensionless performance measure of a device that uses thermal energy, such as an internal combustion engine, steam turbine, steam engine, boiler, furnace, refrigerator, ACs etc.
For ...
than the reciprocating steam engine, and was far easier to control. Diesel engines also required far less supervision and maintenance than steam engines, and as an internal combustion engine it did not need boilers or a water supply, therefore was more space efficient and cheaper to build.
The Liberty ship
Liberty ships were a ship class, class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Although British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost cons ...
s were the last major steamship class equipped with reciprocating engines. The last Victory ship
The Victory ship was a class of cargo ship produced in large numbers by American shipyards during World War II. They were a more modern design compared to the earlier Liberty ship, were slightly larger and had more powerful steam turbine engin ...
s had already been equipped with marine diesels, and diesel engines superseded both steamers and windjammer
A windjammer is a commercial sailing ship with multiple masts, however rigged. The informal term "windjammer" arose during the transition from the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam during the 19th century. The Oxford English Dictionary records t ...
s soon after World War Two. Most steamers were used up to their maximum economical life span, and no commercial ocean-going steamers with reciprocating engines have been built since the 1960s.
Most larger warships of the world's navies were propelled by steam turbines burning bunker fuel in both World Wars, apart from obsolete ships with reciprocating machines from the turn of the century, and rare cases of usage of diesel engines in larger warships. Steam turbines burning fuel remained in warship construction until the end of the Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
(e.g. Russian aircraft carrier ''Admiral Kuznetsov''), because of needs of high power and speed, although from 1970s they were mostly replaced by gas turbine
A gas turbine or gas turbine engine is a type of Internal combustion engine#Continuous combustion, continuous flow internal combustion engine. The main parts common to all gas turbine engines form the power-producing part (known as the gas gene ...
s. Large naval vessels and submarines continue to be operated with steam turbines, using nuclear reactors
A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for commercial electricity, marine propulsion, weapons production and research. Fissile nuclei (primarily uranium-235 or plutonium-2 ...
to boil the water.
NS ''Savannah'', was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, and was built in the late 1950s as a demonstration project for the potential use of nuclear energy.
Thousands of Liberty Ships (powered by steam piston engines) and Victory Ships (powered by steam turbine engines) were built in World War II. A few of these survive as floating museums and sail occasionally: , , , , and .
A steam turbine ship can be either direct propulsion (the turbines, equipped with a reduction gear, rotate directly the propellers), or turboelectric (the turbines rotate electric generators, which in turn feed electric motors operating the propellers).
While steam turbine-driven merchant ships such as the ''Algol''-class cargo ships (1972–1973), ALP Pacesetter-class container ships (1973–1974) and very large crude carriers were built until the 1970s, the use of steam for marine propulsion in the commercial market has declined dramatically due to the development of more efficient diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after the German engineer Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which Combustion, ignition of diesel fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to Mechanics, mechanical Compr ...
s. One notable exception are LNG carrier
An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Overview
The first oceangoing liquified natural gas tanker in the world was '' Methane Pioneer'', which entered service in 1959 with a carrying capacity of ...
s which use boil-off gas from the cargo tanks as fuel. However, even there the development of dual-fuel engines has pushed steam turbines into a niche market with about 10% market share in newbuildings in 2013. Lately, there has been some development in hybrid power plants where the steam turbine is used together with gas engines. As of August 2017 the newest class of Steam Turbine ships are the ''Seri Camellia''-class LNG carriers built by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) starting in 2016 and comprising five units.
Most steamships today are powered by steam turbine
A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...
s. Nuclear powered ships are basically steam turbine vessels. The boiler is heated, not by heat of combustion
The heating value (or energy value or calorific value) of a substance, usually a fuel or food (see food energy), is the amount of heat released during the combustion of a specified amount of it.
The ''calorific value'' is the total energy relea ...
, but by the heat generated by nuclear reactor. Most atomic-powered ships today are either aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
s or submarine
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
s.
See also
*Steamboat
A steamboat is a boat that is marine propulsion, propelled primarily by marine steam engine, steam power, typically driving propellers or Paddle steamer, paddlewheels. The term ''steamboat'' is used to refer to small steam-powered vessels worki ...
*Paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine driving paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, whereby the first uses were wh ...
*Marine steam engine
A marine steam engine is a steam engine that is used to power a ship or boat. This article deals mainly with marine steam engines of the reciprocating type, which were in use from the inception of the steamboat in the early 19th century to thei ...
*History of the steam engine
The first recorded rudimentary steam engine was the aeolipile mentioned by De Architectura#Roman technology, Vitruvius between 30 and 15 BC and, described by Heron of Alexandria in 1st-century Roman Egypt. Several steam-powered devices were lat ...
* International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)#Travel
*List of steam frigates of the United States Navy
This is a list of steam frigates used or previously used by the United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world' ...
* Bibliography of early American naval history
* Lake steamers of North America
Notes
References
Bibliography
E'Book
*Bennett, Frank M. (1897). ''The steam navy of the United States''. Warren & Company Publishers Philadelphia. p. 502.
E'BookUrl2
*Bradford, James C. (1986). ''Captains of the Old Steam Navy: Makers of the American Tradition, 1840–1880''. Naval Institute Press, p. 356,
Url
*Canney, Donald L. (1998). ''Lincoln's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organization, 1861–65''. Naval Institute Press. p. 232
Url
*
Url
*
E'Book
* Lambert, Andrew (1984). ''Battleships in Transition, the Creation of the Steam Battlefleet 1815–1860''. Conway Maritime Press.
* Mahan, Alfred Thayer, n (1907). p : ''From sail to steam: recollections of naval life''. Harper & Brothers, New York, London, p. 325
E'Book
E'Book
E'Book
*
E'Book
Url
Further reading
(at Project Gutenberg)
Book
External links
*{{Commons category-inline, Steamships
Transportation Photographs Collection
- University of Washington Library
Steamships
Steam engines
Steam engine technology