steam

Part 8 - Steam Ships

Steam engines were rapidly adopted to propel tug boats and smaller vessels and as auxiliary power for larger sailing ships but larger and more efficient engines were needed to reduce the weight of coal needed for long sea journeys. This resulted in the compound engine with three or four cylinders. Typically the first cylinder used high pressure steam straight from the boiler. The exhaust steam was then used to drive a second piston in a larger cylinder and finally the exhaust steam from the second cylinder was used in one or two much larger cylinders. This technique prevented the loss of energy when steam condensed in the cylinders as the pressure dropped.

Early steam engines were driven by atmospheric air pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch, so the engine cylinders were large but Isaac Watt was aware that high pressure steam could be used to drive smaller engines. He and John Wilkinson developed more precise machine tools, to make pistons and cylinders that didn't leak steam, and created a demand for boilers capable of holding high pressure steam without exploding.

 Water-wheel (paddle) boats were used by admiral Wang Zhen'e in 418 CE China and between 1132 and 1183 CE, a large number of treadmill-operated boats were in use with as many as 11 paddle-wheels each side.

Pyroscaphe, the first large steam-powered ship, was built in France in 1783 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy. It was propelled by paddle wheels powered by a Newcomen steam engine.

The steamboat era began in the United States in Philadelphia, in 1788, when John Fitch's 45-foot (14-meter) steamboat began a regular commercial service, along the Delaware River, carrying up to 30 passengers between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey.

In Scotland, on 28 March 1803, the "Charlotte Dundas", a steamboat built by Patrick Miller and William Symington, towed two 70 ton barges 30 km (almost 20 miles) along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow, at an average speed of about 3 km/h (2 mph).The American, Robert Fulton, was present at the trials of the Charlotte Dundas and later shipped a Boulton and Watt steam engine to America, where he built the steamship, Clermont, in 1807. It carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York, a 150-mile (240 km) trip, in 32 hours.

In 1807 Robert L. Stevens began operating the steamboat Phoenix. The first steamboats powered only by high pressure steam engines were the Aetna and Pennsylvania, designed and built by Oliver Evans.

In 1808, the Albany was the first paddle steamer to travel by sea along the coast from the Hudson river to the Delaware river in the USA and, in 1811, John Stevens', Little Juliana, began the first steam-powered ferry between Hoboken and New York City.

The Margery, provided a London to Gravesend river service until 1816 when she was sold to Pierre Andriel who survived heavy weather, in the English channel, while steaming from London to Le Havre, France.

The first tugboat (named, "Tug") was launched by the Woods Brothers, in Port Glasgow, on 5 November 1817. Steam engines were rapidly adopted for lake, river and canal boats and tug boats proliferated as they became essential for manoeuvring large sailing ships in and out of harbours. Large sailing ships began using small steam engines for anchor, halyard and sheet winches as well as auxiliary power for use in harbours.