Paddle Wheel Steamers

The long route by way of the Cape having proved unprofitable for steamers, the East Indian Government surveyed the Suez route and had steamships built to maintain a more or less regular service from Bombay to Suez, whence the mails and passengers were conveyed across the Isthmus to the Mediterranean. In the early days of the service the European end was maintained by sailing vessels.

The improvement and finally the real practicability of the overland route was brought about by the Peninsular and Oriental Line, which started in 1834 to maintain a mail service between Great Britain and the Spanish and Portuguese ports in competi tion with the sailing mail packets maintained by the Government. It was then the Peninsular Line, but in 1839 the service was ex tended to Alexandria to connect with the East India Company's steamers and the company became the Peninsular and Oriental Line. It was not until 1854 that the East India Company aban doned its end of the service, although its irregularities and the poor steamships employed on it were the cause of constant complaint.

Steamships of a type practically identical with those of the Cunard Line, but of rather greater tonnage varying from 1,700 to 1,900, were built in 1839 for the West Indian mail service for which the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company had obtained a Royal Charter. At that period the British West Indian colonies were of much greater importance than in more modern times, and the service was heavily subsidised in order to overcome the very great difficulties of coal supply on the route. This service was afterwards extended to the Brazilian coast and the River Plate, causing a steady increase in the size of the ships, although they were for long built on the same principle.

This was very largely due to the fact that the Admiralty had a considerable influence on their design in return for the mail sub sidy, and insisted on the ships approximating the wooden pad dle frigates of their day whose vulnerability, although frequently pointed out by experts, had not yet been proved in action. The hulls therefore all followed approximately the same lines, the owners only being allowed a reasonably free hand in the matter of machinery, in which the economy which was so essential was steadily improving.

The Screw Propeller.

Private shipowners who were un trammelled by the conditions of their subsidy were anxious to improve on the paddle wheel and in 1836 both Francis Pettit Smith, an Englishman, and Captain John Ericsson, a Swede, patented practical screw propellers although the principle was not new. The year 1839 saw a ship built to each of these prin ciples, the "Archimedes" to Smith's patent and the "Robert F. Stockton" to Ericsson's. They were neither of them large vessels, but they both proved the superior economy and power of the screw and led to more important ships being built.

The most important of these steamers was the "Great Britain," which was laid down in dry dock at Bristol in 1839 and floated out in 1844. She was not only noteworthy on account of her dimensions, which were 322 feet by 51 by 32 feet 6 inches depth of hold, which gave her a tonnage of 3,448 according to the old burthen measurement, but also because she was constructed of iron in spite of the great prejudice of the Navy against that material. She was designed by I. K. Brunel, whose intention was originally to make her a paddle steamer. But he was so greatly impressed by the performances of the "Archimedes" on a cruise round the British coast that he altered it and fitted screw ma chinery, reinforced by a big sail area on six masts.

Her machinery consisted of a simple engine with four cylin ders each 88 inches in diameter, with a stroke of 72 and with indicated horse power of 2,000 at five lb. per square inch pressure, a speed of twelve knots being obtained on trial. Her stranding on the Irish coast in 1846, when she had to withstand the gales of a whole winter in an exposed position, finally convinced ship owners that iron construction was both strong and practical.

In 1847 the Americans brought out their first transatlantic steamers to their own ideas, the "Hermann" and "Washington," which were run by the Ocean Line between New York and Bremen by way of Southampton in return for a heavy subsidy. They were ships of 1,85o tons each with paddle engines of 1,400 tons, giving them a speed of eleven knots, their hulls being on the lines of the less extreme Atlantic sailing packets. They maintained their service with fair success until the reversal of the United States subsidy policy in 1857, when they were sent to end their days in the Pacific. In 185o a second American transatlantic service between New York and Havre was started with the "Hum boldt" and "Franklin." American Atlantic Design.—The straight stem of these two ships made them differ greatly in appearance from their British rivals and was purely an American conception which was intro duced by Mr. E. K. Collins when he started the Collins Line under the American flag in 1849. The first fleet consisted of the wooden paddle steamers "Atlantic," "Arctic," "Baltic" and "Paci fic," practically sister ships of 2,86o tons, with beam engines of 2,00o I.H.P. They were a great improvement on the existing material and although they were so well built and extravagantly fitted that it was necessary to obtain an additional subsidy they were the most noteworthy ships on the Atlantic in their day.