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Steamships continued
The success of the Charlotte Dundas and the Comet showed that steam power was possible on water. This started a general drive towards the production of steam powered river boats. By 1818 steam powered, sea-going ships were being developed. In 1820 a steamship called the James Watt was launched. At 43 metres long, this was the biggest steamship of the time. She was powered by two Boulton and Watt engines, each driving a paddle wheel. Paddle wheels were the principal method used for power transmission. It was much later that the screw, or propeller, was developed. In 1822 the Aaron Manby was the first iron ship to be steam powered. She ran between Britain and France at first, but was later used as a pleasure cruiser on the Seine. All these developments ultimately led to the idea of building a ship large enough to cross the Atlantic under steam. The Savannah had made the crossing in 1819, but the journey had been made largely under sail. It was Isambard Kingdom Brunel who designed and built the first successful steam powered ship capable of an Atlantic crossing. His ship, the Great Western, was a paddle-driven steamship. It was built in Bristol, launched in 1837 and crossed the Atlantic in 1845. In an attempt to be the first to cross the Atlantic under steam power, an American, Julius Smith, chartered a ship, the Sirius, to race across the Atlantic against the Great Western. However, the Sirius had not been designed to make the Atlantic crossing. Every available space on board was filled with coal. This meant that she could only carry forty passengers. The Sirius left from Cork in Ireland and took 18 days to reach New York. She had used up all the coal she was carrying, as well as much of her wooden superstructure. The Great Western had left Bristol four days later but arrived in New York after only 15 days at sea, and just a few hours after the Sirius. She still had over two hundred tons of coal in her bunkers.
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© Shirley Burchill, Nigel Hughes, Peter Price and Keith Woodall 2007 Footnote : As far as the Open Door team can ascertain the image shown on this page is in the Public Domain.. |
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