A steamship , often referred to as a steamer , is a type of steam-powered vessel , typically ocean-faring and seaworthy , that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels . The first steamships came into practical usage during the early 19th century; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer (using a propeller or screw). As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is incorrectly assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel , so it is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels.
96-583: SS Dongola , launched 14 September 1905, was a steam-powered ocean liner of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), at various times used as a Royal Navy troop ship (HMT Dongola ) and hospital ship (HMHS Dongola ). Except during the First World War , the ship's main use was as a passenger liner on the routes from England through the Suez Canal to India and
192-458: A "major driver of the first wave of trade globalization (1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history". Steamships were preceded by smaller vessels, called steamboats , conceived in the first half of the 18th century, with the first working steamboat and paddle steamer , the Pyroscaphe , from 1783. Once the technology of steam
288-731: A cargo capacity of 356,112 cubic feet (10,084 m). The ship was designed to be crewed by 236 officers and men, 61 on deck, 91 in the engine room, and 84 in the purser's department. Dongola was registered at Glasgow . Her UK official number was 121270 and her code letters were HDTL. By 1914 she was equipped for wireless telegraphy . Her call sign was MNH. In November 1905, P&O advertised "Direct China Sailings by new Twin Screw Mail Steamer Dongola", stopping in Egypt, Bombay, and Ceylon, with her final destination being Hong Kong . On her maiden voyage beginning at
384-610: A certain depth, however when the depth of the ship changed from added weight it further submerged the paddle wheel causing a substantial decrease in performance. Within a few decades of the development of the river and canal steamboat, the first steamships began to cross the Atlantic Ocean . The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat Experiment , an ex-French lugger ; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. The first iron steamship to go to sea
480-443: A day when travelling at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). Her maiden outward voyage to Melbourne took 42 days, with one coaling stop, carrying 4,000 tons of cargo. Other similar ships were rapidly brought into service over the next few years. By 1885 the usual boiler pressure was 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) and virtually all ocean-going steamships being built were ordered with triple expansion engines. Within
576-566: A demonstration project for the potential use of nuclear energy. Thousands of Liberty Ships (powered by steam piston engines) and Victory Ships (powered by steam turbine engines) were built in World War II. A few of these survive as floating museums and sail occasionally: SS Jeremiah O'Brien , SS John W. Brown , SS American Victory , SS Lane Victory , and SS Red Oak Victory . A steam turbine ship can be either direct propulsion (the turbines, equipped with
672-430: A few further experiments until SS Aberdeen (1881) went into service on the route from Britain to Australia. Her triple expansion engine was designed by Dr A C Kirk, the engineer who had developed the machinery for Propontis . The difference was the use of two double ended Scotch type steel boilers, running at 125 pounds per square inch (860 kPa). These boilers had patent corrugated furnaces that overcame
768-551: A few minutes nothing could be seen for clouds of dust. When these cleared away fire could be seen starting in many directions and in half an hour the whole city was in flames. The wind which had been force 5 at 11.0 a.m. rapidly increased to force 8, direction S.S.W., the smoke and heat blown directly over the ships in the harbour was intense. A large ship, the Lyons Maru , passed Dongola heading for open water and touched her bow plates, but did no damage. A burning lighter then hit
864-551: A few years, new installations were running at 200 pounds per square inch (1,400 kPa). The tramp steamers that operated at the end of the 1880s could sail at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) with a fuel consumption of 0.5 ounces (14 g) of coal per ton mile travelled. This level of efficiency meant that steamships could now operate as the primary method of maritime transport in the vast majority of commercial situations. In 1890, steamers constituted 57% of world's tonnage, and by World War I their share raised to 93%. By 1870
960-473: A given distance, but fewer firemen were needed to fuel the boilers, so crew costs and their accommodation space were reduced. Agamemnon was able to sail from London to China with a coaling stop at Mauritius on the outward and return journey, with a time on passage substantially less than the competing sailing vessels. Holt had already ordered two sister ships to Agamemnon by the time she had returned from her first trip to China in 1866, operating these ships in
1056-452: A head wind, most notably against the southwest monsoon when returning with a cargo of new tea. Though the auxiliary steamers persisted in competing in far eastern trade for a few years (and it was Erl King that carried the first cargo of tea through the Suez Canal ), they soon moved on to other routes. What was needed was a big improvement in fuel efficiency. While the boilers for steam engines on land were allowed to run at high pressures,
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#17328011112541152-424: A hole below the waterline, on the starboard side at the bow, Dongola was taking in water and was beached near Barry , South Wales, for the hole to be patched. At 4.48 am, the rising tide began to lift the ship, and she was winched into Barry Docks at about 8 am. On 17 March, she steamed back to sea, after repairs. In 1915, Dongola was requisitioned until further notice and served as a temporary hospital ship in
1248-403: A long bush of soft metal was fitted in the after end of the stern tube. SS Great Eastern had this arrangement fail on her first transatlantic voyage, with very large amounts of uneven wear. The problem was solved with a lignum vitae water-lubricated bearing, patented in 1858. This became standard practice and is in use today. Since the motive power of screw propulsion is delivered along
1344-502: A number of inventions such as the screw propeller , the compound engine , and the triple-expansion engine made trans-oceanic shipping on a large scale economically viable. In 1870 the White Star Line ’s RMS Oceanic set a new standard for ocean travel by having its first-class cabins amidships, with the added amenity of large portholes, electricity and running water. The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 to meet
1440-458: A particularly compact compound engine and taken great care with the hull design, producing a light, strong, easily driven hull. The efficiency of Holt's package of boiler pressure, compound engine and hull design gave a ship that could steam at 10 knots on 20 long tons of coal a day. This fuel consumption was a saving from between 23 and 14 long tons a day, compared to other contemporary steamers. Not only did less coal need to be carried to travel
1536-474: A reduction gear, rotate directly the propellers), or turboelectric (the turbines rotate electric generators, which in turn feed electric motors operating the propellers). While steam turbine-driven merchant ships such as the Algol -class cargo ships (1972–1973), ALP Pacesetter-class container ships (1973–1974) and very large crude carriers were built until the 1970s, the use of steam for marine propulsion in
1632-532: A refuge for voles , great crested newt and other small mammals, which are preyed upon by kestrels and barn owls . Avonmouth is home to the largest single footprint warehouse in the United Kingdom, a 1,250,000 sq ft portal frame building operated by The Range as a distribution centre. The enormous building occupies 55 acres of land and is part of the Central Park project located close to
1728-426: A sailing vessel. The steam engine would only be used when conditions were unsuitable for sailing – in light or contrary winds. Some of this type (for instance Erl King ) were built with propellers that could be lifted clear of the water to reduce drag when under sail power alone. These ships struggled to be successful on the route to China, as the standing rigging required when sailing was a handicap when steaming into
1824-649: A seasonal troop ship, in July 1906 the ship was first taken up by the Admiralty on a summer trooping charter. In 1907, she made a record speed from Southampton to Bombay, completing the voyage in eighteen days and seven hours. Seasonal trooping work was repeated every year until 1910, and in June 1911 the ship took part in King George V 's Coronation Review of the Fleet , carrying Admiralty guests. Also in 1911, Dongola
1920-583: A separate parish in 1844, and a Church of England chapel was established in the new settlement of Avonmouth late in the nineteenth century. Avonmouth became a separate parish in 1917. Avonmouth's first church, completed in 1934, was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1941 during the Second World War , in one of the six major raids of the Bristol Blitz . It was rebuilt in 1957. In December 1971,
2016-399: A shaft that is positioned above the waterline, with the cylinders positioned below the shaft. SS Great Britain used chain drive to transmit power from a paddler's engine to the propeller shaft – the result of a late design change to propeller propulsion. An effective stern tube and associated bearings were required. The stern tube contains the propeller shaft where it passes through
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#17328011112542112-591: A stone monument possibly dating from the 15th century, was located on the bank of the Severn close to the old mouth of the Avon. Early 19th-century maps show the area as farmland. At that time the deep-water channel of the Avon ran through the present-day site of Avonmouth Docks, and separated the mainland from a small island named Dumball Island. The first development at Avonmouth was a landing stage built in 1860 by Bristol Corporation at "Avon's Mouth". The first record of
2208-620: Is a port and outer suburb of Bristol , England, on the north bank of the mouth of the River Avon and the eastern shore of the Severn Estuary . Part of the Port of Bristol , Avonmouth Docks is important to the region's maritime economy, hosting large vessels for the unloading and exporting of heavier goods. Much of the land use is industrial, including warehousing, light industry, electrical power and sanitation. The M5 motorway bisects
2304-625: Is the only part of Bristol west of the M5 motorway. The long-established residential area is between the industrialised zone and the motorway. The Avonmouth Bridge takes the motorway over the Avon to Somerset . The M49 motorway runs from the M5 at Avonmouth north to the M4 motorway at the Second Severn Crossing to Wales . The old Severn Bridge and the M48 motorway are linked to Avonmouth by
2400-572: The A403 . The Welsh cities of Newport and Cardiff are visible from Avonmouth's coastline. The Portway , part of the A4 , connects Avonmouth with the centre of Bristol. Avonmouth is also served by a usually hourly train service on the Severn Beach Line to central Bristol from Avonmouth railway station , Portway Park & Ride (in the southeast of the neighbourhood) and St Andrews Road (in
2496-528: The Board of Trade (under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854 ) would not allow ships to exceed 20 or 25 pounds per square inch (140 or 170 kPa). Compound engines were a known source of improved efficiency – but generally not used at sea due to the low pressures available. Carnatic (1863) , a P&O ship, had a compound engine – and achieved better efficiency than other ships of
2592-458: The Cold War (eg. Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov ), because of needs of high power and speed, although from 1970s they were mostly replaced by gas turbines . Large naval vessels and submarines continue to be operated with steam turbines, using nuclear reactors to boil the water. NS Savannah , was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, and was built in the late 1950s as
2688-641: The Dardanelles during the Gallipoli campaign of 1915 to 1916. She then returned to use as a troop transport, largely along the coast of East Africa. In 1919, Dongola remained requisitioned. The fighting with Germany had been ended by the Armistice of 11 November 1918 , but throughout 1919 the Russian Civil War continued to rage, with some British (and Allied) intervention on behalf of
2784-711: The East Coast to the West Coast of the United States began on 28 February 1849, with the arrival of SS California in San Francisco Bay . The California left New York Harbor on 6 October 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California, after a four-month and 21-day journey. The first steamship to operate on the Pacific Ocean was
2880-682: The M5 motorway was opened to Avonmouth, and extended south into Somerset when the Avonmouth Bridge was opened in May 1974. On 3 December 2020, four people were killed in an explosion at the water treatment plant . The 10-hectare (25-acre) Avonmouth Sewage Treatment Works is managed as a nature reserve by Wessex Water . The human-made lagoons and a pool provide a feeding and resting area for many birds including ducks such as pochard , tufted duck , teal and shoveler . The rough grassland provides
2976-594: The Mediterranean and then through the Red Sea . While this worked for passengers and some high value cargo, sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. Most notable of these cargoes was tea , typically carried in clippers . Another partial solution was the Steam Auxiliary Ship – a vessel with a steam engine, but also rigged as
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3072-804: The Whites . There was a state of undeclared war between Britain and the Bolsheviks, but in November 1919 Lloyd George began a process of coming to terms with the Soviet Union, and negotiations began in Copenhagen between the British and the Soviets. One of the issues was an exchange of prisoners and others wishing to return home, and an Agreement to this end was signed on 12 February 1920. Dongola
3168-696: The reciprocating steam engine , and was far easier to control. Diesel engines also required far less supervision and maintenance than steam engines, and as an internal combustion engine it did not need boilers or a water supply, therefore was more space efficient and cheaper to build. The Liberty ships were the last major steamship class equipped with reciprocating engines. The last Victory ships had already been equipped with marine diesels, and diesel engines superseded both steamers and windjammers soon after World War Two. Most steamers were used up to their maximum economical life span, and no commercial ocean-going steamers with reciprocating engines have been built since
3264-401: The 1960s. Most steamships today are powered by steam turbines . After the demonstration by British engineer Charles Parsons of his steam turbine-driven yacht, Turbinia , in 1897, the use of steam turbines for propulsion quickly spread. The Cunard RMS Mauretania , built in 1906 was one of the first ocean liners to use the steam turbine (with a late design change shortly before her keel
3360-539: The Atlantic Ocean on a scheduled liner voyage before she was converted to diesels in 1986. The last major passenger ship built with steam turbines was the Fairsky , launched in 1984, later Atlantic Star , reportedly sold to Turkish shipbreakers in 2013. Most luxury yachts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries were steam driven (see luxury yacht ; also Cox & King yachts ). Thomas Assheton Smith
3456-538: The Atlantic, around the southern tip of Africa, and across the Indian Ocean . Before 1866, no steamship could carry enough coal to make this voyage and have enough space left to carry a commercial cargo. A partial solution to this problem was adopted by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), using an overland section between Alexandria and Suez , with connecting steamship routes along
3552-740: The Avonmouth Hotel adjacent to the original station remained open. It provided accommodation for many Europeans emigrating to the Americas via Avonmouth, and during the First World War it housed the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps . It was finally demolished in 1926 when the Royal Edward Dock was expanded. Between 1919 and 1926, the Portway was built, providing more direct road access to Avonmouth from Bristol. Shirehampton had become
3648-471: The Bristol-New York route. The idea of regular scheduled transatlantic service was under discussion by several groups and the rival British and American Steam Navigation Company was established at the same time. Great Western's design sparked controversy from critics that contended that she was too big. The principle that Brunel understood was that the carrying capacity of a hull increases as
3744-585: The Far East, and she was fast enough to carry mail. P&O sold the ship in June 1926 to be broken up for scrap. Dongola was ordered by P&O from the shipbuilders Barclay, Curle and Co. of Whiteinch on the River Clyde , and work was reported to be in hand in March 1905. She was one of four ships built in 1905 and 1906 called the "D" class, the others being Delhi , Devanha , and Delta . The ship
3840-527: The Liverpool to New York route. RMS Titanic was the largest steamship in the world when she sank in 1912; a subsequent major sinking of a steamer was that of the RMS ; Lusitania , as an act of World War I . Launched in 1938, RMS Queen Elizabeth was the largest passenger steamship ever built. Launched in 1969, Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was the last passenger steamship to cross
3936-561: The Severn estuary shoreline. Previously, the largest single footprint warehouse in the United Kingdom was a building operated by Amazon in Dunfermline, Scotland which covers 1,000,000 sq ft. Avonmouth is part of the Bristol North West constituency, which elects a member of Parliament (MP). Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston is an electoral ward electing three councillors to Bristol City Council . Apart from Avonmouth itself,
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4032-426: The commercial market has declined dramatically due to the development of more efficient diesel engines . One notable exception are LNG carriers which use boil-off gas from the cargo tanks as fuel. However, even there the development of dual-fuel engines has pushed steam turbines into a niche market with about 10% market share in newbuildings in 2013. Lately, there has been some development in hybrid power plants where
4128-436: The competing problems of heat transfer and sufficient strength to deal with the boiler pressure. Aberdeen was a marked success, achieving in trials, at 1,800 indicated horsepower , a fuel consumption of 1.28 pounds (0.58 kg) of coal per indicated horsepower. This was a reduction in fuel consumption of about 60%, compared to a typical steamer built ten years earlier. In service, this translated into less than 40 tons of coal
4224-435: The cube of its dimensions, while water resistance only increases as the square of its dimensions. This meant that large ships were more fuel efficient, something very important for long voyages across the Atlantic. Great Western was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep
4320-444: The early 1850s. This was superseded at the beginning of the 20th century by floating pad bearing which automatically built up wedges of oil which could withstand bearing pressures of 500 psi or more. Steam-powered ships were named with a prefix designating their propeller configuration i.e. single, twin, triple-screw. Single-screw Steamship SS , Twin-Screw Steamship TSS , Triple-Screw Steamship TrSS . Steam turbine-driven ships had
4416-652: The end of that year, the ship took Prince Arthur of Connaught and his party to China, on their way to Japan to invest the Emperor Meiji with the Order of the Garter . The ship and the prince arrived in Hong Kong on 9 February 1906. Dongola steamed across Hong Kong Harbour accompanied by a procession of gaily decorated launches, and the prince landed at Blake Pier , where there were speeches. Having been designed as
4512-411: The first screw propeller to an engine at his Birmingham works, an early steam engine , beginning the use of a hydrodynamic screw for propulsion. The development of screw propulsion relied on the following technological innovations. Steam engines had to be designed with the power delivered at the bottom of the machinery, to give direct drive to the propeller shaft . A paddle steamer's engines drive
4608-524: The harbour", so he took his ship outside the breakwater. A steam launch then came out with more survivors. By 7 p.m. about 600 were on board, mainly Japanese, Russians, and Chinese. Some were transferred to other ships, and Dongola then steamed to Kobe with 505 passengers on board. One woman and one child died on the voyage and were buried at sea. The larger and newer Canadian Pacific liner RMS Empress of Australia had also been in Yokohama harbour at
4704-425: The hull as waves pass beneath it—becomes too great. Iron hulls are far less subject to hogging, so that the potential size of an iron-hulled ship is much greater. In the spring of 1840 Brunel also had the opportunity to inspect SS Archimedes , the first screw-propelled steamship, completed only a few months before by F. P. Smith's Propeller Steamship Company. Brunel had been looking into methods of improving
4800-429: The hull structure. It should provide an unrestricted delivery of power by the propeller shaft. The combination of hull and stern tube must avoid any flexing that will bend the shaft or cause uneven wear. The inboard end has a stuffing box that prevents water from entering the hull along the tube. Some early stern tubes were made of brass and operated as a water lubricated bearing along the entire length. In other instances
4896-634: The modern name was in the title of the Port and Channel Docks (Avonmouth Dock) Bill debated in Parliament in early 1863. When the Bristol Port Railway and Pier was built in 1865 the terminus station was named Avonmouth . A hotel, the Avonmouth Hotel, was opened at the same time. A small new village was built to serve the new docks, which were finally opened in 1877. Also in 1877, the BPRP line
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#17328011112544992-402: The needs of the human migration to the United States and Australia. RMS Umbria and her sister ship RMS Etruria were the last two Cunard liners of the period to be fitted with auxiliary sails. Both ships were built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1884. They were record breakers by the standards of the time, and were the largest liners then in service, plying
5088-473: The neighbourhood, with junctions onto the A4 road and M49 motorway , and it has stations on the Severn Beach Line railway. Avonmouth is part of the Bristol City Council electoral ward of Avonmouth and Lawrence Weston , which also includes Shirehampton and the western end of Lawrence Weston . Avonmouth is approximately rectangular, its length favouring the Severn shore, and sits on
5184-577: The newly formed Blue Funnel Line . His competitors rapidly copied his ideas for their own new ships. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave a distance saving of about 3,250 nautical miles (6,020 km; 3,740 mi) on the route from China to London. The canal was not a practical option for sailing vessels, as using a tug was difficult and expensive – so this distance saving was not available to them. Steamships immediately made use of this new waterway and found themselves in high demand in China for
5280-638: The north bank of the Avon, west-north-west of Bristol city centre . Both estuaries have been defensively embanked, primarily to allow the construction of the large Avonmouth Docks, which occupy most of the western part. The related Royal Portbury Dock is across the Avon (in Easton-in-Gordano ). Avonmouth is home to chemical manufacturing plants, and north of the Avonmouth Docks is the gas-fired Seabank Power Station . Its light industrial and warehouse companies include Nisbets . Avonmouth
5376-419: The operating costs of steamships were still too high in certain trades, so sail was the only commercial option in many situations. The compound engine, where steam was expanded twice in two separate cylinders, still had inefficiencies. The solution was the triple expansion engine, in which steam was successively expanded in a high pressure, intermediate pressure and a low pressure cylinder. The theory of this
5472-456: The paddle steamer Beaver , launched in 1836 to service Hudson's Bay Company trading posts between Puget Sound Washington and Alaska . The most testing route for steam was from Britain or the East Coast of the U.S. to the Far East . The distance from either is roughly the same, between 14,000 to 15,000 nautical miles (26,000 to 28,000 km; 16,000 to 17,000 mi), traveling down
5568-453: The performance of Great Britain ' s paddlewheels, and took an immediate interest in the new technology, and Smith, sensing a prestigious new customer for his own company, agreed to lend Archimedes to Brunel for extended tests. Over several months, Smith and Brunel tested a number of different propellers on Archimedes in order to find the most efficient design, a four-bladed model submitted by Smith. When launched in 1843, Great Britain
5664-795: The port of Savannah, Georgia , US, on 22 May 1819, arriving in Liverpool , England, on 20 June 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours). A claimant to the title of the first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power is the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on
5760-512: The prefix TS . In the UK the prefix RMS for Royal Mail Steamship overruled the screw configuration prefix. The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe was the American ship SS Savannah , though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship, with the first half of the journey making use of the steam engine. Savannah left
5856-539: The revolutionary SS Great Britain , also built by Brunel, became the first iron-hulled screw-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. SS Great Britain was the first ship to combine these two innovations. After the initial success of its first liner, SS Great Western of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company assembled the same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully before. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation
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#17328011112545952-478: The shaft, a thrust bearing is needed to transfer that load to the hull without excessive friction. SS Great Britain had a 2 ft diameter gunmetal plate on the forward end of the shaft which bore against a steel plate attached to the engine beds. Water at 200 psi was injected between these two surfaces to lubricate and separate them. This arrangement was not sufficient for higher engine powers and oil lubricated "collar" thrust bearings became standard from
6048-490: The ship and sank, and about twelve of the crew were hauled on board, with another twelve drowning. By 5 p.m. the wind had died away and three boats were sent out to rescue survivors. They made several trips until after midnight, picking up more than 250 people, some badly injured. At daylight the boats were sent off again and more survivors rescued. By 9.40 a.m. on 2 September Griffin was worried by "large quantities of floating oil blazing furiously and drifting in various parts of
6144-482: The ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line. The hull was built of oak by traditional methods. She was the largest steamship for one year, until the British and American's British Queen went into service. Built at the shipyard of Patterson & Mercer in Bristol, Great Western was launched on 19 July 1837 and then sailed to London, where she
6240-521: The start of the 1870 tea season. The steamships were able to obtain a much higher rate of freight than sailing ships and the insurance premium for the cargo was less. So successful were the steamers using the Suez Canal that, in 1871, 45 were built in Clyde shipyards alone for Far Eastern trade. Throughout the 1870s, compound-engined steamships and sailing vessels coexisted in an economic equilibrium:
6336-639: The steam turbine is used together with gas engines. As of August 2017 the newest class of Steam Turbine ships are the Seri Camellia -class LNG carriers built by Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) starting in 2016 and comprising five units. Nuclear powered ships are basically steam turbine vessels. The boiler is heated, not by heat of combustion , but by the heat generated by nuclear reactor. Most atomic-powered ships today are either aircraft carriers or submarines . Avonmouth Avonmouth ( / ˈ eɪ . v ə n m aʊ θ / AY -vən-mowth )
6432-512: The time of the earthquake, and her captain recorded in the ship's log: "The vessel shook all over in a most terrifying fashion, and also rocked very quickly and violently until it seemed as though the masts and funnels must carry away." A long wharf beside the ship simply vanished. Empress of Australia also rescued many survivors. On 5 September, the British press reported that Dongola and all of her crew were safe and had taken aboard many injured and homeless. On 28 December 1923, Commander Griffin
6528-612: The time. Her boilers ran at 26 pounds per square inch (180 kPa) but relied on a substantial amount of superheat . Alfred Holt , who had entered marine engineering and ship management after an apprenticeship in railway engineering, experimented with boiler pressures of 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa) in Cleator . Holt was able to persuade the Board of Trade to allow these boiler pressures and, in partnership with his brother Phillip launched Agamemnon in 1865. Holt had designed
6624-404: The voyage was actually made under sail. The first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power may have been the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on
6720-434: The ward includes Shirehampton and part of Lawrence Weston . Shirehampton is a part of Bristol which has a medieval-founded village nucleus and contains buildings dating more than a century earlier than the earliest examples in Avonmouth. Today the pre-1893 mother parish of Shirehampton has definitive boundaries and c. 6,867 inhabitants. Shirehampton railway station provides travel to the city centre. The western end of
6816-423: The way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship SS Royal William in 1833. The British side-wheel paddle steamer SS Great Western was the first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings, starting in 1838. In 1836 Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a group of Bristol investors formed the Great Western Steamship Company to build a line of steamships for
6912-560: The way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship SS Royal William in 1833. The first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings was the British side-wheel paddle steamer SS Great Western built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1838, which inaugurated the era of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner . SS Archimedes , built in Britain in 1839 by Francis Pettit Smith ,
7008-604: The western industrial zone). A new deep-sea container terminal has been proposed for Avonmouth. The mouth of the Avon was recorded as Afenemuþan in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the years 915 or 918 and 1052, but it is clear from the context that the name does not refer to a settlement. The area was historically part of the chapelry of Shirehampton, a detached part of the ancient parish of Westbury-on-Trym in Gloucestershire . Bewys Cross ,
7104-559: Was delivered to her owners on 15 November 1905, at a price of £160,167, equivalent to £21,724,494 in 2023. Dongola was a twin-screw steamer with two quadruple-expansion engines , also built by Barclay, Curle. They were rated at 1,252 nominal horsepower or 8,000 indicated horsepower , and gave her a top speed of 15.5 knots . As built, she had berths for 243 passengers: 163 in First Class and 80 in Second Class, and had
7200-559: Was an English aristocrat who forwarded the design of the steam yacht in conjunction with the Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier . By World War II , steamers still constituted 73% of world's tonnage, and similar percentage remained in early 1950s. The decline of the steamship began soon thereafter. Many had been lost in the war, and marine diesel engines had finally matured as an economical and viable alternative to steam power. The diesel engine had far better thermal efficiency than
7296-621: Was appointed OBE , and the master of the Empress of Australia , already an OBE, was promoted to CBE. Griffin also received a Japanese decoration. In 1924, Dongola was providing a passenger service between Aden and Bombay, and in 1925 made a round trip from England to Australia and back. On 28 June 1926, P&O sold the ship to Thos. W. Ward Ltd. for demolition at Barrow-in-Furness , the price paid being £15,500. Steam ship As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as
7392-471: Was at its height, came to assert overall control over design of the ship—a state of affairs that would have far-reaching consequences for the company. Construction was carried out in a specially adapted dry dock in Bristol , England. Brunel was given a chance to inspect John Laird 's 213-foot (65 m) (English) channel packet ship Rainbow —the largest iron- hulled ship then in service—in 1838, and
7488-483: Was by far the largest vessel afloat. Brunel's last major project, SS Great Eastern , was built in 1854–1857 with the intent of linking Great Britain with India, via the Cape of Good Hope , without any coaling stops. This ship was arguably more revolutionary than her predecessors. She was one of the first ships to be built with a double hull with watertight compartments and was the first liner to have four funnels. She
7584-743: Was connected to the main railway network by the Clifton Extension Railway , and a new railway station named Avonmouth Dock was opened by the docks. Bricks for the docks were supplied by the Crown Brick Works in West Town, Shirehampton, visible on the 1879 Ordnance Survey map. The Crown Brick Works were owned by Edwin Stride, with his sons Jared and Jethro (who later developed Sneyd Park), together with George Davis and William and Jarman Peters. The Crown Brick Works company
7680-570: Was dissolved in 1886. The new Avonmouth Dock and the original nucleus of the settlement were transferred from Gloucestershire to the City of Bristol in 1894, and the rest of the expanding settlement became part of the City in 1904. Work began in 1902 on the Royal Edward Dock, a major expansion of the docks, completed in 1908. Land required for the expansion necessitated the closure of the original station, and from 1902 all trains terminated at Avonmouth Dock station (renamed "Avonmouth" in 1966). However,
7776-691: Was due to leave on 7 September. On 1 September, she was anchored in the Inner Harbour when the Great Kantō earthquake occurred, which destroyed most of the city. Dongola 's master Commander R. H. Griffin RNR, later reported to P&O in London: At 11.55 a.m. ship commenced to tremble and vibrate violently and on looking towards the shore it was seen that a terrible earthquake was taking place, buildings were collapsing in all directions and in
7872-402: Was established in the 1850s by John Elder , but it was clear that triple expansion engines needed steam at, by the standards of the day, very high pressures. The existing boiler technology could not deliver this. Wrought iron could not provide the strength for the higher pressures. Steel became available in larger quantities in the 1870s, but the quality was variable. The overall design of boilers
7968-452: Was fitted with two side-lever steam engines from the firm of Maudslay, Sons & Field , producing 750 indicated horsepower between them. The ship proved satisfactory in service and initiated the transatlantic route, acting as a model for all following Atlantic paddle-steamers. The Cunard Line 's RMS Britannia began her first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship in 1840, sailing from Liverpool to Boston. In 1845
8064-563: Was improved in the early 1860s, with the Scotch-type boilers – but at that date these still ran at the lower pressures that were then current. The first ship fitted with triple expansion engines was Propontis (launched in 1874). She was fitted with boilers that operated at 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) – but these had technical problems and had to be replaced with ones that ran at 90 pounds per square inch (620 kPa). This substantially degraded performance. There were
8160-405: Was laid down) and was soon followed by all subsequent liners. Most larger warships of the world's navies were propelled by steam turbines burning bunker fuel in both World Wars, apart from obsolete ships with reciprocating machines from the turn of the century, and rare cases of usage of diesel engines in larger warships. Steam turbines burning fuel remained in warship construction until the end of
8256-578: Was launched on Thursday, 14 September 1905, and named Dongola in memory of an Anglo-Egyptian victory on 21 September 1896 in the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan . The ship's dimensions were: registered length 470.0 ft (143.3 m), beam 56.2 ft (17.1 m), depth 23.2 ft (7.1 m), draught 27 feet 8 inches (8.43 m). Her tonnages were gross register tonnage 8,056; net register tonnage 4,742; deadweight tonnage 8,165. After sea trials and fitting out, she
8352-486: Was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the technology changed the design of ships for faster, more economic propulsion. Paddlewheels as the main motive source became standard on these early vessels. It was an effective means of propulsion under ideal conditions but otherwise had serious drawbacks. The paddle-wheel performed best when it operated at
8448-592: Was returned to P&O and was refitted for commercial work. In October 1920 she made her first such voyage from the Port of London to Bombay. On 20 May 1922, the ship had a severe collision at speed in fog off Woosung , China with the Japanese ship Kumana Maru , whose officers were blamed for the incident. Dongola was beached but Kumana Maru continued her voyage. Both vessels had to go into dock for repairs. On 28 August 1923, Dongola arrived in Yokohama and
8544-624: Was silent about several Russians also on board the ship. The ship arrived at Southampton on 22 May 1920. Those on board included the Rev. F. W. North , Anglican Chaplain in Moscow and his wife, the Russian jeweller Alexander Julius Fabergé , the eight-year-old half-British Dimitry Tolstoy, accompanied by his nurse, Lucy Stark, and Elijah Egmore, a butler. At Copenhagen, Dongola had taken on board several new passengers. After her Baltic journeys, Dongola
8640-416: Was soon converted to iron-hulled technology. He scrapped his plans to build a wooden ship and persuaded the company directors to build an iron-hulled ship. Iron's advantages included being much cheaper than wood, not being subject to dry rot or woodworm , and its much greater structural strength. The practical limit on the length of a wooden-hulled ship is about 300 feet, after which hogging —the flexing of
8736-660: Was the 116-ton Aaron Manby , built in 1821 by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks , and became the first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed the English Channel in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of 8 knots (9 mph, 14 km/h). The American ship SS Savannah first crossed the Atlantic Ocean arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819, although most of
8832-456: Was the biggest liner throughout the rest of the 19th century with a gross tonnage of almost 20,000 tons and had a passenger-carrying capacity of thousands. The ship was ahead of her time and went through a turbulent history, never being put to her intended use. The first transatlantic steamer built of steel was SS Buenos Ayrean , built by Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers and entering service in 1879. The first regular steamship service from
8928-399: Was the change from the paddle-wheel to the screw-propeller as the mechanism of propulsion. These steamships quickly became more popular, because the propeller's efficiency was consistent regardless of the depth at which it operated. Being smaller in size and mass and being completely submerged, it was also far less prone to damage. James Watt of Scotland is widely given credit for applying
9024-577: Was the world's first screw propeller -driven steamship for open water seagoing. She had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy , in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. The first screw-driven propeller steamship introduced in America was on a ship built by Thomas Clyde in 1844 and many more ships and routes followed. The key innovation that made ocean-going steamers viable
9120-600: Was used for Indian famine relief. Trooping charter work was repeated every summer from 1912 to 1914. The ship was under charter and carrying troops when the British Empire declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. At 10.47 pm on 4 March 1915, Dongola sailed from Avonmouth , and at 00.17 on 5 March she collided with the Belgian steamer Espagne , which was lying at anchor in the Bristol Channel . With
9216-727: Was used to repatriate Russians from Great Britain to Reval in the Baltic, some of whom were being deported, and on 14 May 1920 she went on to Helsingfors in Finland to bring back people escaping from the Russian Civil War. On 18 May, the ship arrived in Copenhagen , and the British press reported that she had on board 356 passengers released from Russia, some two hundred of them British subjects, including fifteen officers, together with 117 French civilians and 27 Danes. The press
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