Steamboat
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A steamboat, sometimes called a steamer, is a boat or vessel that is propelled by steam power. The term steamboat usually refers to smaller steam-powered boats that usually work on rivers and lakes; steamship usually refers to larger ships capable of ocean travel.
On February 1, 1788, Isaac Briggs and William Longstreet patented the steamboat. But Robert Fulton patented a modified design for a steamboat on February 11, 1809. Fulton's design was a commercial success.
Early steamboats were paddlewheelers with large coal-powered paddlewheels either on the sides or at the rear of the vessel. These were suitable to calm river and coastal shipping, but could not cross oceans as the paddle wheels would be swamped by waves and the amount of coal necessary would take up most of the ship. For most of the 19th century and part of the early 20th century, trade on the Mississippi River would be dominated by paddle-wheel steamboats, very few of which survive to the present day, most destroyed by boiler explosions or fires. One of the few surviving Mississippi sternwheelers from this period, Julius C. Wilkie, is preserved as a museum ship at Winona, Minnesota.
The first regular steamboat service from the west to the east coast of the United States began on February 28, 1849 with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay. The California left New York Harbor on October 6, 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California after the 4-month, 21-day journey.
By 1870, a number of inventions, such as the screw propeller and the steam turbine made trans-oceanic shipping economically viable. This began the earliest era of globalization where trade around the world became cheap and safe.
left: orignial paddlewheel from a paddlewheeler on the lake of Lucerne
right: detail of a steamboat: a paddle-wheel built in
External links
- [1] Cruising The World TV Show (RTP-TV 2001) Online video showing trip down Mississippi on the Delta Queen steamboat