Paddle steamer

Paddle Steamer

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Paddle steamer

A paddle steamer is a ship or boat driven by a steam engine

Steam engine

File:Steam-powered fire engine.jpgA steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines have a long history, going back at least 2000 years....
that uses one or more paddle wheel

Paddle wheel

A paddle wheel is a large wheel fitted with paddles which is used to propel a boat. Paddle wheels powered by steam engines were the means of propulsion for the paddle steamers of the nineteenth century when the technology reached the height of its popularity, but paddle wheels powered by other means were apparently known about long before,...
s to develop thrust for propulsion.

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Encyclopedia

A paddle steamer is a ship or boat driven by a steam engine

Steam engine

Paddle wheel

Steamboat

A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam engine, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels....
. Boats with paddle wheels on the sides are termed sidewheelers, while those with a single wheel on the stern are known as sternwheelers. Paddle steamers usually carry the prefix "PS". Although generally associated with steam power, paddleboats or paddlewheelers have also been driven by diesel engines, animal power, or human power.

The paddle wheel was the first form of mechanical propulsion for a boat, but has now been almost entirely superseded by the screw propeller and other, more modern, forms of marine propulsion

Marine propulsion

Marine propulsion is the act of moving a floating object over or through water. Propulsion devices can take many forms including: propeller, water jet , paddle wheel, sails, Punt , paddles, oars and, experimentally, magnetohydrodynamic drive....
.

Paddle wheels

The paddle wheel is a large wheel, generally built of a steel frame

Steel frame

Steel frame usually refers to a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame....
work, upon the outer edge of which are fitted numerous paddle blades (called floats or buckets). The bottom quarter or so of the wheel travels underwater. Rotation of the paddle wheel produces thrust

Thrust

Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Isaac Newton's Newton's laws of motion. When a system expels or acceleration mass in one direction the accelerated mass will cause a proportional but opposite force on that system....
, forward or backward as required. More advanced paddle wheel designs have featured feathering methods that keep each paddle blade oriented closer to vertical while it is in the water; this increases efficiency. The upper part of a paddle wheel is normally enclosed in a paddlebox to minimise splashing.

Types of paddle steamer

There are two basic ways to mount paddle wheels on a ship; a single wheel on the rear, known as a stern-wheeler, and a paddle wheel on each side, known as a side-wheeler.

Stern-wheelers have generally been used as riverboat

Riverboat

A riverboat is a ship designed for inland navigation. These vessels are usually less sturdy than ships built for the open seas, with limited navigational and rescue equipment, as they do not have to survive the high winds or large waves characteristic on large lakes, seas or oceans....
s, especially in the United States, where they still operate for tourist use on the Mississippi River

Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
and some other locations. On a river, the narrowness of a stern-wheeler is preferable.

Side-wheelers are used as riverboats and as coastal craft. While wider than a stern-wheeler, due to the extra width of the paddle wheels and their enclosing pontoons, a side-wheeler has extra maneuverability since the power may be directed to one wheel at a time. Another type of steam powered boat is the arcynic steamwheeler.

Early developments

The use of a paddle wheel in navigation appears for the first time in the mechanical treatise of the Roman engineer Vitruvius

Vitruvius

File:Vitruvius.jpgMarcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Ancient Rome writer, architect and engineer , active in the 1st century BC. By his own description Vitruvius served as a Ballista , the third class of arms in the military offices....
(De architectura, X 9.5-7), where he describes multi-geared paddle wheels working as a ship odometer

Odometer

An odometer is a device used for indicating distance traveled by an automobile or other vehicle. It may be electronics or Machine. The word derives from the Ancient Greek words hod?s, meaning 'path' or 'way', and m?tron, 'measure' ....
. The first mention of paddle wheels as a means of propulsion comes from the 4th–5th century military treatise De Rebus Bellicis
De Rebus Bellicis

De Rebus Bellicis is a 4th or 5th century anonymous work about war machines used by the Roman army of the time.Date of the writing...
(chapter XVII), where the anonymous Roman author describes an ox-driven paddle-wheel warship:

Robert Temple asserts that the first mention of a paddle-wheel ship from China is described in the History of the Southern Dynasties, compiled in the 7th century but describing the naval ships of the Liu Song Dynasty

Liu Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was first of the four Southern Dynasties in China, followed by the Southern Qi Dynasty.It was founded by Emperor Wu of Liu Song ?? , whose surname together with "Song" forms the most commonly used name for the dynasty, the Liu Song ??....
(420–479) used by admiral Wang Zhene in his campaign against the Qiang people in 418 AD. Temple also writes that the mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi

Zu Chongzhi

Zu Chongzhi , courtesy name Wenyuan , was a prominent China List of mathematicians and List of astronomers during the Liu Song and Southern Qi Dynasties....
(429–500) had a paddle-wheel ship built on the Xinting River (south of Nanjing

Nanjing

is the capital city of China's Jiangsu province of China, and a city with a prominent place in Chinese history and Chinese culture. Nanjing served as the capital of China during several historical periods and is listed as one of the Historical capitals of China....
) known as the "thousand league boat". When campaigning against Hou Jing

Hou Jing

Hou Jing , courtesy name Wanjing , was a general for the History of China states Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, and Liang Dynasty, and briefly, after controlling the Liang imperial regime for several years, usurped the Liang throne, establishing a state of Han....
in 552, the Liang Dynasty

Liang Dynasty

Liang Dynasty , also known as Southern Liang Dynasty , was the third of Southern dynasties in China, followed by the Chen Dynasty. Western Liang Dynasty , with its capital established at Jiangling in 555 by Emperor Xuan of Western Liang, a grandson of Liang's founder Emperor Wu of Liang, claimed to be the legitimate successor of...
(502–557) admiral Xu Shipu employed paddle-wheel boats called "water-wheel boats". At the siege of Liyang in 573, the admiral Huang Faqiu employed foot-treadle powered paddle-wheel boats. A successful paddle-wheel warship design was made in China by Prince Li Gao in 784 AD, during an imperial examination of the provinces by the Tang Dynasty

Tang Dynasty

The Tang Dynasty was an Dynasties in Chinese history preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire....
(618–907) emperor. The Chinese Song Dynasty

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling Chinese dynasty in China between 960–1279 AD; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty....
(960–1279) issued the construction of many paddle-wheel ships for its standing navy

History of the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty of China was a ruling dynasty that controlled China proper and southern China from the middle of the 10th century into the last quarter of the 13th century....
, and according to historian Joseph Needham

Joseph Needham

Noel Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham, Companion of Honour, Fellow of the Royal Society, Fellow of the British Academy , also known as Li Yuese , was a British academic and sinologist known for his research and writing on the history of Science and technology in China....
:

"...between 1132 and 1183 (AD) a great number of treadmill-operated paddle-wheel craft, large and small, were built, including stern-wheelers and ships with as many as 11 paddle-wheels a side,” .

Temple writes that the standard Chinese term "wheel ship" was used by the Song period, whereas a litany of colorful terms were used to describe it beforehand. In the 12th century, the Song government used paddle-wheel ships en masse to defeat opposing armies of pirates armed with their own paddle-wheel ships. At the Battle of Caishi

Battle of Caishi

The naval Battle of Caishi took place in 1161 and was the result of an attempt by forces of the Jurchen Jin Dynasty to cross the Yangtze River, thus beginning an invasion of Southern Song Dynasty....
in 1161, paddle-wheelers were also used with great success against the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) navy. The Chinese used the paddle-wheel ship even during the First Opium War

First Opium War

The First Opium War or the First Anglo-Chinese War was fought between the East India Company and the Qing Dynasty of China from 1839 to 1842 with the aim of forcing China to allow free trade, particularly in opium....
(1839–1842) and for transport around the Pearl River

Pearl River (China)

The Pearl River or Zhu Jiang, or less commonly, the "Guangdong River" , is China's third longest river , and second largest by volume ....
during the early 20th century.

In 1543 the Spanish

Spanish people

Spanish people or Spaniards are a nation or ethnic group native to Spain, in the Iberian Peninsula of southwestern Europe. They are often considered an amalgam of different ethnic groups, rather than an ethnic group by itself....
engineer Blasco de Garay

Blasco de Garay

Blasco de Garay was a Spanish navy captain and inventor.De Garay was a captain in the Spanish navy in the reign of the Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor....
in Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the capital and most populous city of the Autonomous communities of Spain of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, with a population of 1,615,908 in 2008, while the population of the Metropolitan Area was 3,161,081....
made an experimental vessel propelled by a paddle-wheel on each side, worked by forty men. In the same year he showed Carlos I

Carlos I

Carlos I may refer to:*Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, who as king of Spain was known as Carlos I*Carlos I of Portugal...
of Spain (also known as Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556....
, the Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

Image:HRR 14Jh.jpgThe Roman of the Emperor's title was a reflection of the translatio imperii principle that regarded the Holy Roman Emperors as the inheritors of the title of Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, a title left unclaimed in the West after the death of Julius Nepos in 480....
), a new idea - a ship propelled by a giant wheel powered by steam. Carlos was not interested in it.

In 1787 Patrick Miller of Dalswinton

Patrick Miller of Dalswinton

Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, just north of Dumfries was a Scotland banker and shareholder in the Carron Company engineering works and an enthusiastic experimenter in ordnance and naval architecture, including double or triple hulled pleasure boats propelled by cranked paddle-wheels placed between the hulls....
invented a double-hulled boat, which was propelled on the Firth of Forth

Firth of Forth

The Firth of Forth is the estuary or firth of Scotland River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh, and East Lothian to the south....
by men working a capstan which drove paddles on each side.

The first paddle steamer was the Pyroscaphe
Pyroscaphe

Pyroscape was an early experimental steamship build by Claude-Fran?ois-Doroth?e, marquis de Jouffroy d'Abbans in 1783. The first demonstration of this ship in action happened on 15 July 1783 on the river Sa?ne in France....
built by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy of Lyon

Lyon

||-||}Lyon, also known as Lyons in English, is a city in east-central France. Its name is pronounced in French language and Franco-Proven?al language, and or in English language....
in France

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, in 1783. It had a horizontal double-acting steam engine driving two 13.1-ft (4 m) paddle wheels on the sides of the craft. On July 15 1783 it steamed successfully up the Saône for fifteen minutes before the engine failed. Political events interrupted further development.

The next successful attempt at a paddle-driven steam ship was by the Scottish

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
engineer William Symington

William Symington

William Symington was a Scotland engineer and inventor, and the builder of the first practical steamboat.Symington was born in Leadhills, South Lanarkshire, Scotland to a family he described as being "respectable but not wealthy." His father worked as a practical mechanic at the Leadhills mines....
who suggested steam power to Patrick Miller of Dalswinton

Patrick Miller of Dalswinton

Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, just north of Dumfries was a Scotland banker and shareholder in the Carron Company engineering works and an enthusiastic experimenter in ordnance and naval architecture, including double or triple hulled pleasure boats propelled by cranked paddle-wheels placed between the hulls....
. Experimental boats built in 1788 and 1789 worked successfully on Lochmaben

Lochmaben

Lochmaben is a small town in Scotland, and site of a once-important castle. It lies four miles west of Lockerbie, in Dumfries and Galloway....
Loch. In 1802, Symington built a barge

Barge

A barge is a flat-bottomed boat, built mainly for river and canal transport of heavy goods. Most barges are not self-propelled and need to be towed by tugboats or pushed by towboats....
-hauler, Charlotte Dundas
Charlotte Dundas

The Charlotte Dundas is regarded as the world's "first practical steamboat", the first towing steamboat and the boat that demonstrated the practicality of steam power for ships....
, for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company. It successfully hauled two 70-ton barges almost 20 miles (30 km) in 6 hours against a strong headwind on test in 1802. There was much enthusiasm, but some directors of the company were concerned about the banks of the canal being damaged by the wash from a powered vessel, and no more were ordered.

While Charlotte Dundas was the first commercial paddle-steamer and steamboat, the first commercial success was possibly Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton was an United States engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat. He also designed a new type of steam warship....
's Clermont
North River Steamboat

The first commercially successful steamship of the paddle steamer design, North River Steamboat , operated on the Hudson River between New York City and Albany, New York....
in New York, which went into commercial service in 1807 between New York City and Albany

Albany, New York

Albany is the Capital of the state of New York and the county seat of Albany County, New York. Albany is roughly 136 miles north of the city of New York City, and slightly south of the confluence of the Mohawk River and Hudson Rivers....
. Many other paddle-equipped river boats followed all around the world.

Seagoing paddle steamers

The first seagoing trip of a paddle steamer was that in 1808 of the Albany, which steamed from the Hudson River
Hudson River

The Hudson River, called Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk , the Great Mohegan by the Iroquois, or as the Lenape Native Americans called it in Unami, Muhheakantuck, is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York....
along the coast to the Delaware River
Delaware River

The Delaware River is a river on the Atlantic Ocean coast of the United States.The Delaware was explored by Adriaen Block as part of the New Netherlands Colony, and was named the South River to mark the southernmost reach of that colony....
. This was purely for the purpose of moving a river-boat to a new market, but the use of paddle-steamers for short coastal trips began soon after that.

The first paddle-steamer to make a long ocean voyage was the SS Savannah
SS Savannah

The SS Savannah was the first ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean using steam engines for at least part of the voyage. Her machinery was built at the Speedwell Ironworks in New Jersey....
, built in 1819 expressly for this service. Savannah set out for Liverpool
Liverpool

Liverpool [] is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a History of borough status in England and Wales in 1207 and was granted City status in the United Kingdom in 1880....
on May 22 1819, sighting Ireland after 23 days at sea. This was the first powered crossing of the Atlantic, although Savannah also carried a full rig of sail to assist the engines when winds were favorable. In 1822, Charles Napier's Aaron Manby

Aaron Manby

Aaron Manby was a landmark vessel in the science of shipbuilding.Launched in 1821, Aaron Manby was the first steamship to be built of iron....
, the world's first iron ship, made the first direct steam crossing from London to Paris and the first seagoing voyage by an iron ship anywhere.
In 1838, Sirius, a fairly small steam packet built for the Cork
Cork (city)

Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the Ireland third most populous city after Dublin and Belfast. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the Provinces of Ireland of Munster....
to London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
route, became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic
Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions; with a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres . It covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface....
under sustained steam power, beating Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Fellow of the Royal Society , was a United Kingdom engineer. He is best known for the creation of the Great Western Railway, a series of famous steamships, including the first with a propeller, and numerous important bridges and tunnels....
's much larger Great Western by a day. Great Western, however, was actually built for the transatlantic trade, and so had sufficient coal for the passage; Sirius had to burn furniture and other items after running out of coal. The Great Western’s more successful crossing began the regular sailing of powered vessels across the Atlantic. Beaver

Beaver (steamship)

Beaver was the first steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest of North America. She made remote parts of the west coast of Canada accessible for fur trading and was chartered by the Royal Navy for surveying the coastline of British Columbia....
was the first coastal steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America . There are several partially overlapping definitions but the term Pacific Northwest should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada....
of North America. Paddle steamers helped open Japan
Black Ships

The Black Ships was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries. In particular, it refers to USS Mississippi , USS Plymouth , USS Saratoga , and USS Susquehanna , that arrived on July 14,1853 at Uraga Harbor in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan under the command of United States Matthew Calbraith Perr...
to the Western World in the mid-19th century.

The largest paddle-steamer ever built was Brunel's Great Eastern

SS Great Eastern

The Steamship Great Eastern was an iron sailing steam ship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. She was the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers around the world without refueling....
, but it also had screw propulsion and sail rigging. It was 692 ft (211 m) long and weighed 32,000 tons, its paddle-wheels being 56 ft (17 m) in diameter.

In oceangoing service, paddle steamers became obsolete rather quickly with the invention of the screw propeller, but they remained in use in coastal service and as river tugboats, thanks to their shallow draught and good maneuverability.

Paddle steamer

Paddle wheels

Types of paddle steamer

Early developments

Seagoing paddle steamers

Modern paddle steamers