Fearing for the narrowness of the river, Brunel insisted that she should be launched broadside on and was so anxious to avoid the huge mass taking charge that he checked her too soon on the ways and she stuck fast for three months. This delay, and the subsequent work of launching her, drove the original company into liquidation and she was purchased for use on the North Atlantic, a service for which she was not designed and was most unsuitable. The result was that she was a most expensive failure except for the excellent work that she did in laying the Atlantic cable.
By this time the screw steamer was invading most of the trades of the world, including the coastal. The Americans were build ing up a fine coasting fleet to their own requirements, differing very materially from European ideas of design. Most of the European nations were following suit, while steam colliers were even invading the coal trade between the North East coast of England and the Thames, which was regarded as the stronghold of the sailing ship. The first was the 273-ton "Q.E.D." which was really an auxiliary, schooner rigged, with the smoke from her low-powered screw machinery carried up through her mizzen mast. This vessel made her appearance in 1844. Eight years later, however, the first real iron steam collier was put into service, the "John Bowes." This steamer had dimensions 151 ft. 9 in. by 26 ft. 3 in. and was one of the first ships to be fitted with tanks for water ballast. Rebuilt out of all recognition, she is still busy on the Spanish coasting trade as the "Valentin Fierro." A far more important result of her success was that it caused the introduction of the steam tramp, a cargo vessel which was open to charter on any trade instead of running to a definite schedule. Before that time all steamers were built for definite services and chartering for bulk cargoes was unusual, this busi ness being left almost entirely to the sailing ship.
The first vessel to be so fitted was the "Brandon" of 1854, a screw steamer designed for the trade between London and Lime rick, and fitted with a vertical engine having the cranks diametri cally opposite to one another. Her coal consumption on trial was returned as lb. per I.H.P. per hour, as compared with the 4 to 41 lb. which was the utmost economy to which the simple engine could aspire. Although built for a short distance service she was employed as a transport in the Crimean War and her suc cess caused the compound engine to be very generally adopted, while the steam pressure steadily increased.
As this pressure increased it became possible to add a third stage to the engine and triple expansion machinery came into being. In France this system was sponsored by M. Benjamin Normand of the famous firm of Havre shipbuilders, who took out a patent in 1871 and installed his first set two years later. In England a patent was taken out by Dr. A. C. Kirk, a colleague of John Elder, who tried a triple expansion engine and machin ery first in 1874 in the 2,083 ton steamer "Propontis." Water Tube Boilers.—The original installation of the "7ro pontis" was fed by water tube boilers, in which the water passed in tubes through the flame instead of the flame passing in tubes through the water as in ordinary mercantile practice. These boil ers, which are now generally adopted in all navies and in many merchant ships, had already been introduced in France but had given much trouble. Those installed in the "Propontis" were no more satisfactory than those of French men-of-war which had been so fitted in the 'forties and she is generally described as a failure, but when new boilers were installed with reduced pressure she continued to work satisfactorily for many years.
In 1881 the "Aberdeen" of 3,616 tons, designed to run on the Australian trade in which economy was more obviously neces sary than in any other, was fitted with Kirk's triple expansion engines. On trial she reduced her coal consumption to 1.28 lb. per I.H.P. per hour and was a most satisfactory vessel on ser vice, although this abnormally small consumption was naturally increased under working conditions. Her success caused a very large number of steamers of all kinds, which had originally car ried compound engines, to be tripled by the addition of a third cylinder during the 'eighties and 'nineties.