Steam Was First Used At Sea 150 Years Ago

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31764, 22 August 1968, Page 8

Steam Was First Used At Sea 150 Years Ago

The age of steam at sea was ushered in 150 years ago when the Savannah, the first ship to use steam on an Atlantic Ocean crossing, was launched in the United States on August 22, 1818.

A year later the 320-ton vessel crossed the Atlantic from Savannah, Georgia, to Liverpool, taking 29 days 11 hours for the trip. Eightyfive hours of the journey were made under steam, the first time steam had been used on the trans-Atlantic run.

This little sailing packet, originally launched as a conventional sailing vessel, began a revolution in world shipping and international trade. The use of the steampower on the then-developing railway systems and the introduction of the steamship on world sailing routes were the main factors in the tripling of international trade between 1800 and 1850.

The Savannah was a fully rigged sailing vessel, but fitted with a steam engine and retractable paddle wheels. The 90-h.p. engine could be stopped and the

collapsible paddle wheels taken on deck when there was sufficient wind for her conventional sails.

The trip was far from being wholly successful. The temporary paddle wheels were too fragile and the hull was not designed for the heavy engine. In fact some historians say that the voyage can hardly be rated as a steamship crossing. Of the total 29-day voyage only 85 hours were spent under steam and the Savannah arrived off Ireland with her coal supply long exhausted. The owners actually offered the ship for sale in Britain and in various Baltic ports. Since no bidders were found she returned by sail alone to the United States where her engines were removed and she went back to the sailing trade for which she was originally intended. But, the start had been made and the revolution which was to bring about the eventual downfall of the conventional sailing ship had begun.

Other ships made the Atlantic crossing partly under sail in the next 20 years, among them the French ship, Caroline Brest, in 1823, and the British-built Curacao in 1827. The last-named was

probably the most successful of the earliest trans-Atlantic steamers. There were other incidental voyages, but it was not until 1838 that a regular service was established by genuine steamships. In 1838 the Sirius and the Great Western, both British ships, arrived in New York Harbour within hours of each other to Inaugurate the rivalry in speed for what has since been called the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic. The Great Western was a 212 foot liner of 2300 tons, with four coal-burning boilers creating a speed of 8} knots. She made extensive use of steam, although, like most steamships through the nineteenth century, she was rigged for sail, which she used when it could be effective. The contribution to the advance of transportation of the Savannah has long since been forgotten, but her name lives on. The world’s first nuclear-powered merchant vessel, America’s Savannah, can cross the Atlantic in seven days at a speed of 21 knots. And just as the first Savannah ushered in the age of steam at sea, the new Savannah has ushered in the atomic age at sea.—U.S.I.S.