Passenger ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The first steamship in the world: history, description and interesting facts. Steamship "Great East"

On February 11, 1809, American Robert Fulton patented his invention - the first steam-powered ship. Soon steamships came to replace sailing ships and were in charge by water transport until the middle of the 20th century. Here are the 10 most famous ships

Steamship "Clermont"

The Claremont became the first officially patented steam-powered vessel in the history of shipbuilding. The American Robert Fulton, having learned that the French engineer Jacques Perrier had successfully tested the first ship with a steam engine on the Seine, decided to bring this idea to life. In 1907, Fulton surprised the New York public by launching a ship with a large funnel and huge paddle wheels on the Hudson River. Onlookers were quite surprised that this creation of Fulton's engineering was able to move at all. But the Claremont not only sailed along the Hudson, but was also able to move against the current without the help of wind or sails. Fulton received a patent for his invention and within several years improved the ship and organized permanent river voyages on the Claremont along the Hudson River from New York to Albany. The speed of the first steamship was 9 km/h.

Steamship "Clermont"

The first Russian steamship "Elizabeth"

The steamship "Elizabeth", built for Russia by the Scottish mechanic Charles Bird, entered service in 1815. The ship's hull was wooden. A metal pipe with a diameter of about 30 cm and a height of 7.6 m served instead of a mast for setting sails in a tailwind. The 16 horsepower steamship had 2 paddle wheels. The steamship made its first voyage on November 3, 1815 from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt. To test the speed of the steamer, the port commander ordered his best rowing boat to compete with it. Since the speed of the "Elizabeth" reached 10.7 km/h, the oarsmen, pushing hard on the oars, sometimes managed to overtake the steamer. By the way, the Russian word “steamboat” was introduced into use by naval officer P. I. Ricord, a participant in this voyage. Subsequently, the ship was used to transport passengers and tow barges to Kronstadt. And by 1820, the Russian fleet already consisted of about 15 steamships, by 1835 - about 52.


The first Russian steamship "Elizabeth"

Steamboat Savannah

The Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1819. He made a flight from the American city of Savannah to Liverpool, England in 29 days. It should be noted that the steamer sailed almost the entire way, and only when the wind died down was the steam engine turned on so that the ship could move even in calm conditions. At the beginning of the era of steamship construction, sails were left on ships making long voyages. The sailors still did not fully trust the power of steam: there was a great risk that the steam engine would break down in the middle of the ocean or there would not be enough fuel to reach the destination port.


Steamboat Savannah

Steamship "Sirius"

They risked abandoning the use of sails only 19 years after transatlantic flight"Savannahs". The paddle steamer Sirius left the English port of Cork with 40 passengers on April 4, 1838 and reached New York 18 days and 10 hours later. Sirius crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time without raising sails, using only a steam engine. This ship opened a permanent commercial shipping line across the Atlantic. "Sirius" moved at a speed of 15 km/h and consumed a monstrously large amount of fuel - 1 ton per hour. The ship was overloaded with coal - 450 tons. But even this reserve was not enough for the flight. "Sirius" barely made it to New York. To keep the ship moving, ship rigging, masts, wooden bridge decking, handrails and even furniture had to be thrown into the firebox.


Steamship "Sirius"

Steamship "Archimedes"

One of the first steam ships with a propeller was built by the English inventor Francis Smith. The Englishman decided to use the discovery of the ancient Greek scientist Archimedes, which had been known for a thousand years, but was used only for supplying water for irrigation - the screw. Smith came up with the idea of ​​using it to propel the ship. The first steamship, called Archimedes, was built in 1838. It was moved by a screw with a diameter of 2.1 m, which was powered by two steam engines with a power of 45 horsepower each. The vessel had a carrying capacity of 237 tons. "Archimedes" developed a maximum speed of about 18 km/h. Archimedes did not make long-distance flights. After successful trials on the Thames, the ship continued to operate on inland shipping lines.


The first screw steamer "Stockton" to cross the Atlantic

Steamship "Stockton"

The Stockton was the first screw steamship to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Great Britain to America. The story of its inventor, Swede John Erikson, is very dramatic. He decided to use a propeller to propel a steam ship at the same time as the Englishman Smith. Erickson decided to sell his invention to the British Navy, for which he built a screw steamer with his own money. The military department did not appreciate the Swede's innovations; Erickson ended up in prison for debt. The inventor was saved by the Americans, who were very interested in a maneuverable steam ship, in which the propulsion mechanism was hidden below the waterline, and the pipe could be lowered. This is exactly what the 70-horsepower steamship Stockton was, which Erickson built for the Americans and named after his new friend, a naval officer. On his steamship in 1838, Erickson left for America forever, where he gained fame as a great engineer and became rich.

Steamship "Amazon"

In 1951, newspapers called the Amazon the largest wooden steamship ever built in Britain. This passenger transport the luxury class could carry more than 2,000 tons and was equipped with an 80 horsepower steam engine. Although metal steamships had been rolling out of shipyards for 10 years, the British built their giant from wood because the conservative British Admiralty was prejudiced against innovation. On 2 January 1852, the Amazon, crewed by 110 of Britain's finest sailors, sailed for the West Indies, taking on board 50 passengers (including the Lord of the Admiralty). At the beginning of the journey, the ship was attacked by a strong and prolonged storm; in order to continue moving further, it was necessary to start the steam engine at full power. A machine with overheated bearings worked non-stop for 36 hours. And on January 4, the officer on duty saw flames coming out of the engine room hatch. Within 10 minutes the fire engulfed the deck. It was impossible to put out the fire in the stormy wind. The Amazon continued to move through the waves at a speed of 24 km/h, and there was no way to launch lifeboats. Passengers rushed around the deck in panic. Only when the steam boiler had exhausted all the water were they able to put people into the rescue longboats. After some time, those who sailed away in the lifeboats heard explosions - it was the gunpowder stored in the holds of the Amazon that exploded, and the ship sank along with the captain and part of the crew. Of the 162 people who set sail, only 58 were saved. Of these, seven died on the shore, and 11 people went crazy from the experience. The death of the Amazon became a cruel lesson for the Lords of the Admiralty, who did not want to admit the danger posed by combining the wooden hull of a ship with a steam engine.


Steamship "Amazon"

Steamboat " Great East»

The steamship "Great East" is the predecessor of the Titanic. This steel giant, launched in 1860, was 210 meters long and for forty years was considered the most big ship in the world. The "Great East" was equipped with both paddle wheels and propellers. The ship became the last masterpiece of one of the famous engineers of the 19th century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The huge ship was built to transport passengers from England to distant India and Australia without visiting ports to refuel. Brunel conceived his brainchild as the safest ship in the world - the Grand Orient had a double hull that protected it from flooding. When at one time the ship received a hole larger than the Titanic, it not only remained afloat, but was able to continue its voyage. Construction technology of such large ships at that time it had not yet been worked out, and the construction of the “Great East” was overshadowed by many deaths of workers working at the dock. The floating colossus was launched for two whole months - the winches broke down, several workers were injured. A disaster also occurred when the engine was started - the steam boiler exploded, scalding several people with boiling water. Engineer Brunel died upon learning of this. Infamous even before it set sail, the 4,000-person Grand Orient set off on its maiden voyage on June 17, 1860, with just 43 passengers and 418 crew on board. And in the future there were few people willing to sail across the ocean on the “unlucky” ship. In 1888, they decided to dismantle the ship for scrap metal.


Steamship "Great East"

Steamship "Great Britain"

The first screw steamship metal body"Great Britain" left the stocks on July 19, 1943. Its designer, Isombard Brunel, was the first to combine the latest achievements on one big ship. Brunel set out to transform long and dangerous transatlantic passenger transport into fast and luxurious sea ​​travel. The huge steam engines of the Great Britain steamship consumed 70 tons of coal per hour, produced 686 horsepower and occupied three decks. Immediately after its launch, the steamship became the largest iron ship in the world with a propeller, marking the beginning of the era of steam liners. But this metal giant also had sails, just in case. On July 26, 1845, the steamer Great Britain set off on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic with 60 passengers on board and 600 tons of cargo. The steamer moved at a speed of approximately 17 km/h and after 14 days and 21 hours entered the port of New York. After three years of successful flights, the Great Britain failed. On September 22, 1846, the steamer, crossing the Irish Sea, found itself dangerously close to the shore, and the rising tide brought the ship ashore. There was no disaster - when the tide went out, the passengers were lowered from board to the ground and transported in carriages. A year later, the Great Britain was rescued from captivity, a canal was broken, and the ship was back on the water.


The huge transatlantic steam liner Titanic, which claimed the lives of more than a thousand passengers

Steamship Titanic

The infamous Titanic was the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of its construction. This city steamship weighed 46,000 tons and was 880 feet long. In addition to the cabins, the superliner had gyms, swimming pools, oriental baths and a cafe. The Titanic, which set sail from the English coast on April 12, could accommodate up to 3,000 passengers and about 800 crew members and moved at a maximum speed of 42 km/h. On the fateful night of April 14-15, when it collided with an iceberg, the Titanic was traveling exactly at this speed - the captain was trying to break the world record for ocean-going steamships. There were 1,309 passengers and 898 crew on board at the time of the shipwreck. Only 712 people were saved, 1495 died. There were not enough lifeboats for everyone; most of the passengers remained on the ship without hope of salvation. On April 15, at 2:20 a.m., a giant passenger ship, making its first voyage, sank. The survivors were picked up by the ship "Carpathia". But even on it, not all those rescued were transported to New York alive and well - some of the Titanic passengers died on the way, some lost their minds.

Since the advent of transoceanic passenger lines (originating in the 1840s for regular passenger transportation between continents) the passenger liners serving them "gained weight" rather slowly: the tonnage of a typical 19th century steamship-liner usually amounted to only a few thousand registered tons. After the first unsuccessful experience of creating a giant steamship - we are talking about a British liner Great Eastern 1858 (tonnage 18,915 register tons) - shipping companies have long been wary of building large ships. Only at the end of the 1880s did the first passenger steamships with a size of more than 10,000 registered tons begin to appear (a total of 37 of these were built before 1900), then in 1901 the first liner with a tonnage of more than 20,000 tons appeared - CelticWhite Star company, and in 1907 they appearedLusitania And Mauretania"Cunard", breaking the 30,000 tons mark. In 1911, the 40,000 ton milestone was finally crossed: the White Star Line launched the first giant liner of the 20th century - Olympic measuring 45,324 register tons, designed to serve the Southampton-New York passenger line.





The first giant liner turned out to be a lucky ship - even a meeting with a German submarine in the First World War ended with the sinking of not the giant liner, but the German submarine itself;Olympic worked quietly on the North Atlantic lines until 1935, after which he died the natural death of the ship - it was written off for scrap. But Olympic's siblings became infamous. ABOUT the fate of the liner launched in 1911 Titanic there is no need to say much - the whole world knows that this ship died on its very first voyage, taking more than 1,500 lives with it to the bottom.
Titanic, 46,328 tons

The third of the brothers turned out to be a little luckier - Britannic(48,158 tons). Launched in 1914, due to the outbreak of war, she did not have time to work on passenger lines, but in 1915 she was converted into a hospital ship for the British Navy and, as such, made five voyages to the Eastern Mediterranean. The sixth flight in November 1916 turned out to be fatal: Britannic died in the Aegean Sea after being blown up by an enemy mine, becoming the most large ship, sunk in the First world war; 30 people died along with the ship.

"Cunard" - the eternal competitor of the "White Star" - could not help but react to the creation of three giant ships at once by its rival. In 1913, the company launched its first giant liner - it was Aquitaniawith a tonnage of 45,647 tons, plied the seas from 1914 to 1949, surviving both world wars; by the end of the 30s, the liner remained the only operating four-pipe ship in the world.

Aquitania compared to the United States Capitol

The creation by the British of four giants at once prompted the German shipping company Hamburg-America to create their own super-large passenger liners, surpassing the ships of the British. The first of the "Big Three" in 1913 was Imperator(52,117 tons), then they were launched Vaterland("Vaterlyand", 54,282 tons) and Bismarck(56,551 t). Due to the war that began in August 1914, the first of the brothers had very little time to sail on the Hamburg-New York line, and Bismarck and never once went on a flight under the German flag. Since the beginning of the war Vaterland was blocked in New York and in 1917 went to the Americans; after the war, two other ships had to be given to the British as reparation payments.

Imperator went to the Cunard company and received the name Berengaria


Bismarck was given to White Star Line and given the name Majestic. In 1914-1935, it held the title of the largest ship in the world.




Vaterland remained with the Americans under a new name Leviathan and until 1934 sailed on the New York-Cherbourg-Southampton-Hamburg line

The First World War dealt a strong blow to transatlantic passenger shipping: only by the end of the 20s did passenger traffic between North America and Europe again exceeded the mark of 1,000,000 passengers per year (for comparison, in 1913, 2.6 million passengers crossed the Atlantic). Then, by the end of the 20s, the rivalry between shipping companies in Europe revived again. The German company Norddeutscher Lloyd used money received from the United States (it was compensation payments for the German ships confiscated in 1917) decided to create two new giant liners:
Bremen Built 1928, 51,656 register tons


And Europa 1930, 49,746 tons.

The new German liners turned out to be the most technically advanced ships of their time - Bremen the first of the giant ships to become the owner of the Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic (before him, giant liners did not show speed records), and Europa- second. Both record-breaking airliners served German passenger lines until 1939, then the war began. Bremen did not survive the war (it burned down in 1941), but Europa in 1945 it became a trophy of the Americans, who gave this liner to France as compensation for the Normandy they burned (more about it below). The French have a name Liberte this liner sailed until 1962, when it was scrapped.

And the French themselves did not sit idle in the late 20s. In 1927 it was put into operation Ile de France- the first French giant liner (43,153 tons). To the one who created it French Line l einer worked more than 30 years.


Photo after World War II.


Then in 1930 the French launched L"Atlantique, 40,945 tons - the first giant liner designed to operate on non-North Atlantic lines ( L"Atlantique sailed on the line Bordeaux - Rio de Janeiro - Buenos Aires). The hull of this vessel was designed by Russian engineer Vladimir Ivanovich Yurkevich. A distinctive feature of the two French giants was the magnificent innovative interior design in the Art Deco style. Unlike Ile de France this ship lived a very short life.


Finally, in the early 30s, a completely new player appeared in the race of giant steamships - Italy, where, on the initiative of the ambitious leader Benito Mussolini, shipping companies began creating two new large-scale liners. The first to be launched Rex(51,062 tons).


Then was lowered Conte di Savoia, 48,502 tons. Since 1932, both liners sailed on the Genoa-New York line. The most famous of the two Italian brothers was Rex, who won the Blue Ribbon from the Germans in 1933. Smaller Conte di Savoia I didn’t set any speed records. On the line o ba liners were operated until the spring of 1940, then after Italy entered the war they were laid up and ingloriously died under the bombs of Anglo-American planes.
Conte di Savoia



Britain also joined the renewed race: overtaking the temporarily lagging Cunard and White Star, the Canadian Pacific company distinguished itself - in 1931 it launched a liner on the Southampton-Quebec-Montreal line Empress of Britain(42,348 register tons). In September 1939, the ship was requisitioned for the British Navy and was sunk by a German submarine in October 1940, becoming the Kriegsmarine's largest casualty of the Second World War.



For giant liners, 1932 became a kind of acme - then 12 ships with a tonnage of more than 40,000 registered tons each plied the waters of the Atlantic Ocean at once; in descending order of tonnage starting with the largest:

Majestic

Leviathan

Berengaria

Conte di Savoia

Aquitania

Ile de France

Empress of Britain

L"Atlantique
However, 1932 certainly couldn’t be called a happy time for trans-Atlantic shipping - the Great Depression was raging, so that year only 751,592 transatlantic passengers, by 1934 their number had completely dropped to 460,000. After 1932, the size of the “League of Giants” began to sharply thin out: after sailing for only 15 months in January 1933 , in the second half of the 1930s they were taken out of service and scrappedOlympicand three captured Germans (Leviathan,Majestic And Berengaria); Aquitaniaremained the only giant ship of the 1910s in service.
But they were replaced by a more than worthy replacement - three supergiant airliners measuring more than 80,000 register tons each.

The first of them was a French liner Normandie, which set out on its first voyage in May 1935. This liner became the most Russian of the giant ships of the 20th century: the ship’s hull was designed by the already mentioned engineer Vladimir Yurkevich,the unsinkability system for the Normandy was developed by other Russian engineers - I.P. Poluektov, I.N. Bokhanovsky and B.S. Verzhebsky, the propellers for the ship were developed by another Russian emigrant, Alexander Kharkevich, and the artist Alexander Yakovlev took part in creating the luxurious interior of the ship. At the time of creation, the tonnage of the vessel was 79,280 tons, but then the tonnage was increased to 83,423 tons; up to 1940Normandieheld the title of the largest passenger ship in the world and at the same time in 1935-36 and 1937-38 she held the title of the fastest ship in the world - the Blue Riband of the Atlantic - became the first, after the Lusitania and Mauretania, passenger ship twentieth century, breaking both the size record and the speed record.








But Normandiewas not destined to live a long life - in August 1939 the liner arrived in New York and got stuck here due to the outbreak of war in Europe; in December 1941, after the United States entered the war, the liner was requisitioned by the American government, and the liner's conversion to military transport began. In the midst of work in February 1942, a fire broke out on the ship, 1 person died, and along with him, theNormandie.

Main rivalNormandiein the second half of the 30s she became an EnglishwomanQueen Mary(1936, 81,237 tons) of the new merged company Cunard White Star.


The length of the liner was 311 meters


The liner survived World War II and continued to operate on the Southampton-New York line after the war from 1949-1967; for 15 whole years this ship held, not without difficulty, what it had taken fromNormandieAtlantic Blue Ribbon. In 1967Queen Mary was taken to the Californian port of Long Beach, where it still serves as a hotel.

(Near Queen Marythere is B-427, a former submarine Pacific Fleet USSR, now a museum ship)

In 1940, the sister was launched Queen Mary - liner Queen Elizabeth(83,673 tons), largest passenger airliner XX century. From 1946 to 1968 this ship sailed on the Southampton-Cherbourg-New York line, then was sold to Hong Kong for refitting; in January 1972, in the same place in Hong Kong, this ship burned down.
Queen Elizabeth





Europe took a long time to recover from the consequences of World War II, so the first post-war giant liner was an American shipUnited States 1952 , 53,329 tons. The American liner became the last owner of the Atlantic Blue Riband and held it until her retirement in 1969.


In 1969 United Stateswas laid up in Philadelphia and has been standing - or rather, rotting - there for 46 years.

By the end of the 50s, transatlantic passenger shipping picked up again - in 1957 and 1958, more than 2 million passengers crossed the North Atlantic by ship (and the same number crossed the ocean by air). 15 years after the end of the war, Europeans again began to build giant ships. France retired in 1958Ile de Franceand began to create a replacement for it - in 1961 the liner was launchedFrance(66,343 tons), intended for operation on the Le Havre-Southampton-New York line.



The English company Peninsula and Orient in the early 60s put into operation two new giant liners designed to operate on the Southampton - Suez Canal line (but after June 1967 they sailed through South Africa) - Australia; those were linersOriana(41,910 t) and Canberra(45,270 t). Both ships served the passenger line until 1973, and then were repurposed as cruise ships.
Oriana




Canberra




In the 1960s, Italy returned to the already fading race of giant liners - in 1963 it launched a linerRaffaello(45,933 tons), a year later - a liner Michelangelo(45,911 t). Both sisters worked on the Genoa-New York line.
Raffaello




Michelangelo



By the mid-60s, 8 giant liners continued to sail on ocean passenger lines - their maximum number since the 1930s; 6 of the 8 giant liners served the European-North American route, 2 - the European-Australian route. But this type of transport ocean liner already lived out his life last years: in 1961, 750 thousand passengers crossed the North Atlantic by water, and 2 million by air; by 1964, the share of ships in transatlantic passenger traffic had decreased to 17% (in 1957 it was 50%), and by 1970 it had completely fallen to 4%. One after another, shipping companies began to withdraw their liners from service on passenger lines, and to close the lines themselves - in 1969 it was removed from the lineUnited States, in 1974 - France(was sold to Norway and sent to work on cruises), in 1975 the Italians finished their workRaffaello And Michelangelo(after many ordeals they were scrapped).
And in this very “era of decay” in 1969, the last giant passenger airliner of the 20th century, the Englishwoman, began operating on the Southampton-New York line.Queen Elizabeth 2(69,053 register tons), combining work on a passenger line with cruise activities. By the mid-70s, the only competitors of this liner on the North Atlantic route were the Soviet mid-sized liners Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov, and the Polish liner Stefan Batory, but in the next decade these rivals were gone.
Passenger airlinerQueen Elizabeth 2entered the 21st century in splendid isolation.

Queen Elizabeth 2was "retired" in 2008.

FIRST RUSSIAN STEAMSHIP

In 1815, the first steamship was built in Russia. This significant event for domestic shipping took place in St. Petersburg at the Berda plant. Scotsman Charles Bird arrived in Russia in 1786. At first he worked as an assistant to Karl Gascoigne, also a visiting specialist in Petrozavodsk at the Aleksandrovsky Cannon Foundry. Later, in 1792, together with his father-in-law, another Scot, Morgan organized a partnership. One of the enterprises of the partnership was a foundry and mechanical plant, later called the Byrd plant.

At that time, the monopoly on the production of steamships was given by Alexander I to Robert Fulton, who was the inventor of the steam engine. But since Fulton did not build a single steamboat on the rivers of Russia for 3 years, the construction privilege passed to Charles Byrd.

The Scot took the matter seriously, and already in 1815, the first Russian steamship, named “Elizabeth,” was built at the Berd plant in St. Petersburg. The ship, called in English the “pyroscaphe” or “steamboat”, became the ancestor of Russian steamships. The engine used on the Elizabeth was a Watt balance steam engine, the power of which was 4 horsepower, and the shaft rotation speed was forty revolutions per minute. The steamer was equipped with 6-bladed side wheels with a width of 120 cm and a diameter of 240 cm. The length of the "Elizabeth" was 183 cm, the width was 457, and the draft of the vessel was 61 cm. The steam boiler for one firebox operated on wood, with a chimney leading from it made of brick, which was later replaced with metal. Such a pipe could serve as the basis for a sail; its height was 7.62 m. “Elizabeth” could reach speeds of up to 5.8 knots (almost 11 km/h).

The steamer "Elizabeth" was tested for the first time on the pond of the Tauride Garden and showed good speed there. Subsequently, Charles Beard continued to promote his invention. For example, he invited St. Petersburg officials for a boat trip. During the trip along the Neva, guests were entertained and treated, but in addition, the route included a visit to the plant.

First regular flight The steam boat "Elizabeth" left St. Petersburg for Kronstadt on November 3, 1815. The journey there took 3 hours 15 minutes, and the return trip took a little over 5 hours due to bad weather. There were thirteen passengers on board. Subsequently, “Elizabeth” began to regularly walk along the Neva and Gulf of Finland, and with the light hand of P.I. Ricord, the English name “steamboat” was replaced by the Russian “steamboat”. Rikord was one of the first to compile detailed description the first Russian steamship "Elizabeth". Thanks to the success of his invention, Charles Bird received several large government orders and created his own shipping company. The new ships carried both cargo and passengers.

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THE FIRST STEAMBOATS

The use of steam engines on water began in 1707, when the French physicist Denis Papin designed the first boat with a steam engine and paddle wheels. Presumably, after a successful test, it was broken by boatmen who were afraid of competition. Thirty years later, Englishman Jonathan Hulls invented a steam tug. The experiment ended unsuccessfully: the engine turned out to be heavy and the tug sank.

In 1802, Scotsman William Symington demonstrated the steamship Charlotte Dundas. The widespread use of steam engines on ships began in 1807 with the voyages of the passenger steamer Clermont, built by the American Robert Fulton. Beginning in the 1790s, Fulton took up the problem of using steam to propel ships. In 1809, Fulton patented the Claremont design and went down in history as the inventor of the steamboat. Newspapers wrote that many boatmen closed their eyes in horror as the “Fulton monster,” spewing fire and smoke, moved along the Hudson against the wind and current.

Just ten to fifteen years after R. Fulton’s invention, steamships seriously replaced sailing ships. In 1813, two factories for the production of steam engines began operating in Pittsburgh in the USA. A year later, 20 steamships were assigned to the port of New Orleans, and in 1835 there were already 1,200 steamships operating on the Mississippi and its tributaries.

By 1815 in England on the river. Clyde (Glasgow) already had 10 steamships and seven or eight on the river. Thames. In the same year, the first sea steamer "Argyle" was built, which sailed from Glasgow to London. In 1816, the Majestic steamship made its first voyages from Brighton to Le Havre and Dover to Calais, after which regular maritime steam lines began to open between Great Britain, Ireland, France and Holland.

In 1813, Fulton turned to the Russian government with a request to grant him the privilege to build a steamship he had invented and use it on the rivers of the Russian Empire. However, Fulton did not create steamships in Russia. He died in 1815, and in 1816 the privilege given to him was revoked.

The beginning of the 19th century in Russia is marked by the construction of the first ships with steam engines. In 1815, the owner of a mechanical foundry in St. Petersburg, Karl Bird, built the first paddle steamer "Elizabeth". A factory-manufactured Watt steam engine with a power of 4 hp was installed on the wooden Tikhvinka. With. and a steam boiler that powered the side wheels. The machine made 40 revolutions per minute. After successful tests on the Neva and the passage from St. Petersburg to Kronstadt, the ship made voyages on the St. Petersburg–Kronstadt line. The steamer covered this route in 5 hours 20 minutes with an average speed of about 9.3 km/h.

The construction of steamships also began on other rivers of Russia. The first steamship in the Volga basin appeared on the Kama in June 1816. It was built by the Pozhvinsky iron foundry and ironworks of V. A. Vsevolozhsky. Having a power of 24 hp. s., the ship made several experimental voyages along the Kama. By the 20s of the 19th century, there was only one steamship in the Black Sea basin - "Vesuvius", not counting the primitive steamship "Pchelka" with a power of 25 hp, built by Kyiv serfs, which two years later was carried through the rapids to Kherson, from where he made flights to Nikolaev.

THE BEGINNING OF DOMESTIC SHIPBUILDING

Despite all the unfavorable conditions that delay the possibility of implementation and dissemination of Russian inventions, the works of Russian innovators back in the 18th century. in the field of construction of steam engines and metallurgy contributed to the introduction of steam and iron shipbuilding in Russia. Already in 1815, the first Russian steamship “Elizabeth”, a car, made voyages between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt; which has a capacity of 16 hp. With. was manufactured in St. Petersburg at the Berda plant. In 1817, the first Volga-Kama steamships and engines for them were built in the Urals. At the Izhora Admiralty Plant in 1817, the steamship “Skory” was built, 18 m long with a 30 hp engine. With. and in 1825 the steamship “Provorny” with an 80-horsepower engine. With. On the Black Sea, the first steamships were Vesuvius (1820) and the 14-gun steamship Meteor (1825).

Based on the experience of building small steamships that served for port needs and transporting goods, the military steamer Hercules was built in 1832. It carried the world's first improved steamship engine without a balancer, built by innovative Russian technicians. Such machines appeared in England only in the late thirties of the 19th century. In 1836, the first wheeled 28-gun steamship-frigate “Bogatyr” was built with a displacement of 1340 tons, with an engine power of 240 hp. pp., manufactured at the Izhora plant.

Captivated by the competition, the owners of transatlantic packet boats did not immediately notice that they had a terrible enemy who, after a couple of decades, would begin to displace sailing ships from all ocean routes. These were steamships.

The purpose of our book is not to tell the story of how and where the first steam ships appeared. Let us confine ourselves to just stating that by the time the first regular line was founded on the Atlantic, different countries Dozens of steamships have already been built around the world. But then they did not pose the slightest threat to the packet boats, since their main place of work was rivers and canals.

When one of the creators of the early steamships, John Fitch, expressed a prophetic thought in the presence of a group of entrepreneurs that the time would come when steamships, especially passenger ships, would be preferred to all others vehicles, one of the participants in this meeting whispered to another: “Poor fellow! What a pity that he has gone crazy!” And one of the major scientists of the early 19th century, Dionysius Lardner, quite authoritatively stated that a steamship would never be able to take on board the amount of fuel required to cross the ocean, and therefore the creation of a steamship operating on the New York - Liverpool line is the same absurd, like traveling from New York to... the Moon.

Nevertheless, life refuted these prophecies, and the ships gradually began to make their way through unbelief and prejudice.

When the sailing ship Savannah was built at one of the American shipyards, no one thought that it would be included in all books on the history of navigation. The sailing ship owes this to the excellent sailor Moses Rogers, who commanded the first steamboats of Robert Fulton and believed so much in the future of steam ships that he decided to found his own steamship company. For this purpose, he acquired a steam engine and was now looking for a ship to install this unit on. The choice fell on the newly built Savannah.

The ship had a gracefully curved bow and a seemingly chopped off, so-called transom, stern. Among the three high masts carrying sails, a bizarre pipe consisting of two elbows looked very unusual - so that it could be turned in different directions so that smoke and sparks did not fall on the sails. Along the sides of the Savannah, paddle wheels with a diameter of 4.6 m were installed, which, when sailing, were removed, folded into a fan, and in this form laid on the deck, where they did not take up too much space. To protect the deck and the people on it from splashes, removable canvas shields were installed above the paddle wheels.

Savannah had two saloons and first class cabins for 32 passengers. Savannah's speed when the steam engine was running was a snail's pace: only 6 knots.

Rogers originally intended to exploit Savannah along Atlantic coast USA, but at that time there was a depression in the country, and the owner decided to move the ship across the ocean, where it would be profitable to sell it and found a more profitable enterprise,

On May 19, 1819, the following advertisement appeared in the Savannah Republic: "The steamer Savannah (Captain Rogers) will sail for Liverpool tomorrow, the 20th inst., under all circumstances." Regarding “any circumstances,” the captain somewhat overestimated his capabilities. But on May 22 - a day that is still celebrated in America as a holiday of navigation - Savannah nevertheless set out on a voyage, having on board 75 tons of coal and about 100 m 3 of firewood. Plumes of black smoke enveloped onlookers who had gathered on the shore to see off the strange ship. As soon as the shore was out of sight, the fire in the furnaces was extinguished, and the further part of the journey Savannah walked mainly under sail.

However, despite the extremely rare use of the steam engine, the more than modest reserves of fuel very quickly came to an end, and on June 18, an entry appeared in the ship’s log: “There is no coal to maintain steam.” Fortunately, Rogers experienced an energy crisis already off the coast of England, so the ship reached the nearest port of Kinsale without any incident and replenished its supplies.

And two days later a sensation occurred near the port of Liverpool. The coast guard saw the ship engulfed in smoke, and several ships rushed to its aid. Imagine the surprise of the sailors when they became convinced that the ship being rescued was moving away from them quite briskly and its crew did not at all want to be rescued.

So, 27 days 11 hours after leaving the American port, Savannah reached Liverpool. In England, the new product was treated with great curiosity, but no more. Nobody wanted to buy the ship. Rogers's commercial affairs in Stockholm and St. Petersburg ended equally unsuccessfully. Having sipped unsalted in the late autumn of the same year, Savannah returned back to America. During the entire voyage from west to east and back, Savannah's steam engine worked only 80 hours, and therefore the British in no way agree to recognize this ship as the first transatlantic steamship.

Moses Rogers, who returned to the United States, found himself on the verge of ruin and, in order to somehow save the situation, offered Savannah to the Navy Department, but his offer was rejected. With great difficulty, Rogers sold Savannah at auction to a small New York sailing packet boat company. The new owners first of all removed the steam engine from the ship, and then put it on the New York - Savannah line. But the work of the ex-steamer turned out to be very short-lived. A year later, Savannah sat on the rocks off Long Island, and they didn’t even bother filming her. Rogers himself returned to the river ships, but soon died of fever.

After Savannah, there were several more steam ships that were not at all intended to conquer the Atlantic, but by chance, sent across the ocean, they, partially using wind energy, reached their goal. Among these Atlantic pioneers were the warship Rising Star; the sailing schooner Caroline, which, like Savannah, was subsequently equipped with a steam engine: the steamer Calpe, a few years later renamed Curacao; steamer Royal William. The last ship, built in 1831, is interesting because among its 235 shareholders and co-owners were Samuel Cunard, with whose name the entire subsequent history of transatlantic shipping is associated, as well as his two brothers: Henry and Joseph.

The ship was laid down in Quebec in September 1830 and launched on April 29, 1831. On the occasion of the descent, the mayor of Quebec declared a day off. Thousands of city residents attended the ceremony, orchestras thundered and cannons fired. The launched ship was towed to Montreal, where two steam engines with a total power of about 300 hp were installed. With.

In appearance, the Royal William resembled a traditional sailing schooner with a pointed bow and a long bowsprit, but between the three masts there was a modest, thin smokestack.

Paddle wheels rotated along the sides of the wooden hull and desperately splashed through the water - as a person who cannot swim does when he has fallen into the river. The ship could carry 130 passengers: 50 cabins and 80 cabinless.

Initially, Royal William was intended for short voyages between the Canadian ports of Halifax and Quebec, but passengers did not indulge this “flammable” ship with their attention, and when a cholera epidemic broke out in Canada, the ship was completely out of work. And then the owners of the Royal William decided to do the same thing that the owner of the Savannah, Moses Rogers, had done ten years earlier: try to sell the ship that no one wanted in Europe.

Canadian newspapers widely advertised this flight, scheduled for August 1, 1833. Passengers were promised “tastefully decorated, elegant cabins” and excellent service. The ticket price was £20, "not including the cost of wine."

Despite extensive advertising, the ship's owners managed to seduce only seven passengers (all English), who entrusted their lives to the fire-breathing monster. The ship's cargo was also small: stuffed birds - specimens of the fauna of Canada, which a certain master McCulloch sent to London for sale.

On August 4, 1833, at 5 a.m., the ship left Quebec. At the port of Pictou (Nova Scotia) the ship took on coal and other supplies, and the pedantic customs officer made the following entry in the registration book:

"August 17. Royal William. 363 reg. tons, 36 people. Port of destination - London. Cargo - about 330 tons of coal, a box with stuffed birds, six spare beams for spars, a box, ten chests of luggage. A certain amount of furniture and a harp" .

The Atlantic met Royal William with a terrible storm. The foremast was broken, and one of the two steam engines was out of order. With great difficulty, Captain John McDougall and the mechanic managed to repair the car. Every fourth day we had to stop the machines to clean the boilers of scale.

Nevertheless, the ship reached England safely, and, unlike Savannah, it was sold at a profit - for 10 thousand pounds sterling. The new owner did not use the ship for long and, not without profit, resold it to Spain, where, under the name Isabella Sehunda, the former Royal William became the first steamship in the Spanish navy. It is noteworthy that McDougall, who so skillfully led the ship from America to Europe, was invited to the position of commander of this ship.

In 1837, another Royal William was built - this time on the other side of the Atlantic, in Liverpool. This is the first steamship to have iron watertight bulkheads, although the hull was still made of wood.

The new Royal William set out on its maiden voyage on July 5, 1838, with 32 passengers on board. According to eyewitnesses, the ship sat in the water so deep that the passengers only had to lean over the bulwark to wash themselves.

The Atlantic met the liner with severe storms, so it took 19 days to cross the ocean. Nevertheless, the Americans gave the ship highly appreciated. Advertisements of the following nature appeared in American newspapers:

"English steamer Royal William, 617 reg. t, Captain Swanson. This fine steamer, recently arrived in New York, will leave for Liverpool on Saturday, August 4th at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The ship was built only 16 months ago. Due to its design (divided with five waterproof compartments) she is considered one of the safest ships in England. The steamer has spacious and comfortable cabins, the cost of which is $140, including food and wine, and the cost of mailing letters is 25 cents per sheet, or one dollar per ounce.”

As announced, on August 4 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon the ship departed New York for Europe and crossed the Atlantic in a very short time. good time- 14.5 days. This steamer served for a very long time and was scrapped only in 1888.

Among the ships that were the predecessors of steam transatlantic liners, one cannot fail to note the steamship Liverpool, named after the city where it was launched. For its time, it was a fairly large ship, 70 m long, carrying 700 tons of cargo and 450 tons of coal. As the Liverpool Mercury wrote on October 12, 1838, it is “a floating leviathan, with powerful means to travel thousands of miles against winds and contrary currents.”


"The Floating Leviathan" Liverpool

Liverpool went down in the history of transatlantic shipping as the first twin-tube steamship. In the interior design of the cabins and other rooms on this ship, those elements of luxury have already appeared that later turned the liners into floating palaces and hotels.

On October 20, 1838, the ship left Liverpool with 50 passengers on board. 150 tons of cargo, 563 tons of coal. But already on the sixth day of the voyage, the captain saw that fuel reserves were melting at a catastrophic rate, and he had no choice but to return to the port of Cork. to refill the bunker.

Only on November 6, the ship set out for the second time and on November 23, on the 17th day of the voyage, arrived in America. It must be said that the Liverpool was not a great success: the well-designed interiors could not compensate for the poorly made hull of the ship, through the grooves of which water seeped inside during storms, and the liner was inferior in speed not only to steam ships, but also to many sailing ships. Therefore, after several flights to America and back with the same results (there - in 17 days, back - in 15 days), the ship was sold to another company, which began to call it Great Liverpool, and under this name the liner died in 1846.

The first ship to cross the Atlantic without the help of wind was the relatively small steamer Sirius, built in 1837 and intended to transport goods and passengers between London and the Irish port of Cork.

In those years, London entrepreneur Junius Smith founded a transatlantic shipping company and ordered a steamship for it, which later received the name British Queen. The steamship was designed in such a way that it could not cross the Atlantic without the help of the wind. But suddenly the company that built the ship went bankrupt, and it remained unfinished.

Meanwhile, the outstanding engineer Brunel (we will devote a lot of space to him on the pages of our book) was finishing the construction of his first-born Great Western. Smith had no doubt that Brunel's steamer would be the first to cross the Atlantic without the help of the wind, and Smith did not want to allow this, and he made a desperate decision: to find a suitable steamer and send it to America to get ahead of the Great Western.

Of course, Smith did not find a suitable steamship - such ships simply did not exist at that time, and therefore, after a long search, he chose the steamboat Sirius, which was clearly not suitable for its historical mission. The only thing the entrepreneur could rely on was luck and the desperate Captain Roberts, an ardent supporter of steam engines.

On April 3, 1838, at 10:30 a.m., Sirius set off on a voyage with 98 passengers and 450 tons of coal on board. The overloaded steamer sat in the water almost up to the deck. If there had been a small squall, Sirius would have inevitably capsized, but, apparently, fate itself protected the ship - the weather was excellent.

In total, Sirius had 37 crew members, including two cabin boys, a stewardess and a “servant”, whose functions still remain a mystery.

Almost simultaneously, Great Western also set sail, but it was clear to everyone that only a miracle could bring victory to Sirius. But this miracle happened: at the very beginning of the journey, a fire broke out on the Great Western, and he had to return to port. This gave Captain Roberts an unexpected head start, and he took full advantage of it. If the sailor did not act quickly enough, the captain would grab his pistol and he would have to move. When the ship's coal supplies ran out, pieces of the mast, furniture and... a wooden doll, requisitioned for a noble purpose from one little passenger, flew into the firebox, cut into firewood.

On April 22, late in the evening, Sirius completed the transition, and on the morning of April 23, he triumphantly entered the New York port with a result of 18 days 2 hours. The following lines appeared in the Kurir Inquirer on April 24:

“We cannot judge how profitable it is to use steamships on regular postal lines in terms of fuel consumption. But if we talk about the very possibility of crossing the Atlantic under steam ... - even the most convinced skeptics should stop doubting this issue.”

On May 1, Sirius set off on her return voyage and on the 18th, she moored at the port of Falmouth. For this feat, Roberts was appointed captain of the large steamer British Queen, but his triumph was short-lived. Soon, Captain Roberts died along with the steamer President. Sirius himself was no longer sent across the Atlantic, and he modestly worked on the London-Cork line.

As for Sirius's competitor, the large steamer Great Western, it set out on its voyage after repairs three days later and was only six hours behind Sirius. But if all the fuel resources were used up on Sirius, there was still a fair amount of coal left on Great Western.

We have already mentioned the British Queen, which was supposed to be the first steamship to cross the Atlantic without the help of wind. When it was finally built, newspapermen called it "a most beautiful example of London shipbuilding, which for elegance, strength and perfection of proportions has no equal." Launched on May 24, 1838, the British Queen became the world's largest steamship. It was a three-masted liner with the sailing rig of a barque. The bow of the wooden case was decorated with a sculpture of Queen Victoria. It was assumed that the ship would be named Princess Victoria, but while construction was underway, Victoria became queen, and the ship was named British Queen, that is, the British Queen. The completion of the ship dragged on until the summer of 1839, and when the work was completed, the Great Western already reigned supreme on the Atlantic.

On the first voyage, British Queen, under the command of our friend Captain Roberts, crossed the Atlantic in 15 days. The new liner left New York on August 1. By coincidence, the Great Western was sailing on the same day, and many passengers and New Yorkers made bets on which of the two ships would arrive first. Maybe it was then, on the New York pier, that the idea of ​​a symbolic prize was born." Blue ribbon", under the banner of which the entire subsequent history of transatlantic passenger shipping took place. It must be said that Great Western won this race, 12 hours ahead of its competitor.

With great difficulty the ship won its right to exist, and this was understandable. After all, for a long time the steamship was losing to sailing ships in almost all respects - construction cost, operating costs, safety. After all, in the period 1816-1838 alone, 260 American people died river steamers, including 99 as a result of a boiler explosion.

The reliability of steam engines was extremely low - they often broke down. And they needed so much fuel that the captain was always in danger of being left in the middle of the ocean without coal. Therefore, even many decades later, when steamships completely replaced packet boats, they still had masts with sails for a long time, “just in case.”

The steamships also lost very much by purely aesthetic criteria. They had nothing of the beauty and elegance of their ancestors - sailing ships and nothing of the grandeur and power of their descendants - steamships, turbo ships and motor ships. Dirty, smoky, with awkward pipes, ugly architecture, they looked like the ugly duckling from Andersen’s fairy tale, and it took enormous effort, the creative effort of scientists and designers of several generations, for the ugly duckling to turn into a beautiful swan.

Even the most important factor, which, it would seem, should have become the decisive argument in favor of the steamship - speed - at the first stage of the development of steam ships turned against them. Captains of sailing ships, who had extensive experience in navigation, overtook steamships, although today this seems incredible. And yet, it is so. By the early 30s of the last century, steamships crossed the Atlantic in 15-20 days, and back in 1815, the sailing ship Galatea traveled from Newfoundland to Liverpool in 11 days, the sailing ship Yorktown crossed the Atlantic in 13.5 days, Oxford took about 14 days, and the clipper Dreadnought, on one of its voyages, covered the distance from New York to Queenstown in... 9 days 17 hours! Decades passed before steamships broke these records set by sailing ships. And it was necessary to have the gift of great foresight in order to see in the first steam ships, so far from perfect, that decisive force that would later make the steamship the ruler of the sea: namely, the ability to escape from the power of the elements, to become independent from the vagaries of the winds and to ensure regularity of navigation .

 

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