I recently traveled to Oxnard, California to help my friend Donna Ward and her husband Sid celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The black-tie celebration took place on the Scarlett Belle, a paddle wheel riverboat, which is pictured in the Channel Islands harbor. It was a glorious three-hour sunset cruise. There was a sumptuous buffet dinner, and all of the approximately 70 attendees had a wonderful time laughing and talking, along with standing outside on the decks, feeling the cool breeze. I don’t think the Scarlett Belle actually runs on steam, but it certainly looks the part. I have been on an actual paddle steamer in Uncertain, Texas on Caddo Lake. It is very eerie to be on at dusk. Because it is powered by steam, it is quiet and all you can hear are the cicadas and wonder what beasts are in the shadows along the lake. However, paddle steamers must have been an opulent way to travel. With stately dining rooms and an attentive crew, I’m sure you could not ask for more. Let’s learn more about paddle steamers.
According to Wikipedia, a paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.
In the early 19th century, paddle wheels were the predominant way of propulsion for steam-powered boats. In the late 19th century, paddle propulsion was largely superseded by the screw propeller and other marine propulsion systems that have a higher efficiency, especially in rough or open water. Paddlewheels continue to be used by small, pedal-powered paddle boats and by some ships that operate tourist voyages. The latter are often powered by diesel engines.
Paddle wheels
The paddle wheel is a large steel framework wheel. The outer edge of the wheel is fitted with numerous, regularly spaced paddle blades called floats or buckets. The bottom quarter or so of the wheel travels under water. An engine rotates the paddle wheel in the water to produce thrust, forward or backward as required. More advanced paddle-wheel designs feature "feathering" methods that keep each paddle blade closer to vertical while in the water to increase efficiency. The upper part of a paddle wheel is normally enclosed in a paddlebox to minimize splashing.
Types of paddle steamers
The two types of paddle wheel steamers are stern-wheeler, with a single wheel on the rear, and side-wheeler, with one on each side. Both were used as riverboats in the United States. Some still operate for tourists, for example on the Mississippi River.
Stern-wheelers
Although the first stern-wheelers were invented in Europe, they saw the most service in North America, especially on the Mississippi River. Enterprise was built at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1814 as an improvement over the less efficient side-wheelers. The second stern-wheeler built — Washington of 1816 — had two decks and served as the prototype for all subsequent steamboats of the Mississippi, including those made famous in Mark Twain's book “Life on the Mississippi.”
Side-wheelers
Side-wheelers are used as riverboats and as coastal craft. Though the side wheels and enclosing sponsons make them wider than stern-wheelers, they may be more maneuverable, since they can sometimes move the paddles at different speeds, and even in opposite directions. This extra maneuverability makes side-wheelers popular on the narrower, winding rivers of the Murray–Darling system in Australia, where a number still operate.
European side-wheelers, such as PS Waverley, connect the wheels with solid drive shafts that limit maneuverability and give the craft a wide turning radius. Some were built with paddle clutches that disengage one or both paddles so they can turn independently. However, wisdom gained from early experience with side-wheelers deemed that they be operated with clutches out or as solid-shaft vessels. Crews noticed that as ships approached the dock, passengers moved to the side of the ship ready to disembark. The shift in weight — added to independent movements of the paddles — could lead to imbalance and potential capsizing. Paddle tugs were frequently operated with clutches in, as the lack of passengers aboard meant that independent paddle movement could be used safely and the added maneuverability exploited to the full.
Feathering paddle wheel
In a simple paddle wheel, where the paddles are fixed around the periphery, power is lost due to churning of the water as the paddles enter and leave the water surface. Ideally, the paddles should remain vertical while under water. This ideal can be approximated by use of levers and linkages connected to a fixed eccentric. The eccentric is fixed slightly forward of the main wheel center. It is coupled to each paddle by a rod and lever. The geometry is designed such that the paddles are kept almost vertical for the short duration that they are in the water.
History in the Western world
The use of a paddle wheel in navigation appears for the first time in the mechanical treatise “De Architectura” of the Roman engineer Vitruvius, where he describes multigeared paddle wheels working as a ship odometer. The first mention of paddle wheels as a means of propulsion comes from the fourth– or fifth-century military treatise “De Rebus Bellicis” Chapter XVII, where the anonymous Roman author describes an ox-driven paddle-wheel warship:
Animal power, directed by the resources on ingenuity, drives with ease and swiftness, wherever utility summons it, a warship suitable for naval combats, which, because of its enormous size, human frailty as it were prevented from being operated by the hands of men. In its hull, or hollow interior, oxen, yoked in pairs to capstans, turn wheels attached to the sides of the ship; paddles, projecting above the circumference or curved surface of the wheels, beating the water with their strokes like oar-blades as the wheels revolve, work with an amazing and ingenious effect, their action producing rapid motion. This warship, moreover, because of its own bulk and because of the machinery working inside it, joins battle with such pounding force that it easily wrecks and destroys all enemy warships coming at close quarters.
Italian physician Guido da Vigevano (circa 1280–1349), planning for a new crusade, made illustrations for a paddle boat that was propelled by manually turned compound cranks.
One of the drawings of the Anonymous Author of the Hussite Wars shows a boat with a pair of paddlewheels at each end turned by men operating compound cranks. The concept was improved by the Italian Roberto Valturio in 1463, who devised a boat with five sets, where the parallel cranks are all joined to a single power source by one connecting rod, an idea adopted by his compatriot Francesco di Giorgio.
In 1704, French physicist Denis Papin constructed the first ship powered by his steam engine, mechanically linked to paddles. This made him the first to construct a steam-powered boat or vehicle of any kind. Then, he poured the first steam cylinder of the world in the iron foundry at Veckerhagen.
In 1787, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton invented a double-hulled boat that was propelled on the Firth of Forth by men working a capstan that drove paddles on each side.
One of the first functioning steamships, Palmipède, which was also the first paddle steamer, was built in France in 1774 by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy and his colleagues. The 42-foot 8-inch steamer with rotating paddles sailed on the Doubs River in June and July 1776. In 1783, a new paddle steamer by de Jouffroy, Pyroscaphe, successfully steamed up the river Saône for 15 minutes before the engine failed. Bureaucracy and the French Revolution thwarted further progress by de Jouffroy.
The next successful attempt at a paddle-driven steam ship was by Scottish engineer William Symington, who suggested steam power to Patrick Miller of Dalswinton. Experimental boats built in 1788 and 1789 worked successfully on Lochmaben Loch. In 1802, Symington built a barge-hauler, Charlotte Dundas, for the Forth and Clyde Canal Co. It successfully hauled two 70-ton barges almost 20 miles in six hours against a strong headwind on test in 1802. Enthusiasm was high, but some directors of the company were concerned about the banks of the canal being damaged by the wash from a powered vessel, and no more were ordered.
While Charlotte Dundas was the first commercial paddle steamer and steamboat, the first commercial success was possibly Robert Fulton's Clermont in New York, which went into commercial service in 1807 between New York City and Albany. Many other paddle-equipped river boats followed all around the world; the first in Europe being PS Comet designed by Henry Bell which started a scheduled passenger service on the River Clyde in 1812.
In 1812, the first U.S. Mississippi River paddle steamer began operating out of New Orleans. By 1814, Captain Henry Shreve had developed a "steamboat" suitable for local conditions. Landings in New Orleans went from 21 in 1814 to 191 in 1819 and over 1,200 in 1833.
The first stern-wheeler was built by Mr. Roentgeres at Rotterdam, and used between Antwerp and Ghent in 1827.
Team boats, paddle boats driven by horses, were used for ferries the United States from the 1820s–1850s, as they were economical and did not incur licensing costs imposed by the steam navigation monopoly. In the 1850s, they were replaced by steamboats.
After the American Civil War, as the expanding railroads took many passengers, the traffic became primarily bulk cargoes. The largest, and one of the last, paddle steamers on the Mississippi was the sternwheeler Sprague. Built in 1901, she pushed coal and petroleum until 1948.
In Europe from the 1820s, paddle steamers were used to take tourists from the rapidly expanding industrial cities on river cruises or to the newly established seaside resorts, where pleasure piers were built to allow passengers to disembark regardless of the state of the tide. Later, these paddle steamers were fitted with luxurious saloons in an effort to compete with the facilities available on the railways. Notable examples are the Thames steamers which took passengers from London to Southend-on-Sea and Margate, Clyde steamers that connected Glasgow with the resort of Rothsay and the Köln-Düsseldorfer cruise steamers on the River Rhine. Paddle steamer services continued into the mid-20th century, when ownership of motor cars finally made them obsolete except for a few heritage examples.
History in China
The first mention of a paddle-wheel ship from China is in the “History of the Southern Dynasties,” compiled in the seventh century but describing the naval ships of the Liu Song Dynasty (420–479) used by admiral Wang Zhen'e in his campaign against the Qiang in 418 AD. The ancient Chinese mathematician and astronomer Zu Chongzhi (429–500) had a paddle-wheel ship built on the Xinting River south of Nanjing known as the "thousand league boat." When campaigning against Hou Jing in 552, the Liang Dynasty (502–557) admiral Xu Shipu employed paddle-wheel boats called "water-wheel boats." At the siege of Liyang in 573, the admiral Huang Faqiu employed foot-treadle powered paddle-wheel boats. A successful paddle-wheel warship design was made in China by Prince Li Gao in 784 AD, during an imperial examination of the provinces by the Tang Dynasty (618–907) emperor. The Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279) issued the construction of many paddle-wheel ships for its standing navy, and according to the British biochemist, historian and sinologist Joseph Needham:
"...between 1132 and 1183 AD a great number of treadmill-operated paddle-wheel craft, large and small, were built, including sternwheelers and ships with as many as 11 paddle-wheels a side."
The standard Chinese term "wheel ship" was used by the Song period, whereas a litany of colorful terms were used to describe it beforehand. In the 12th century, the Song government used paddle-wheel ships en masse to defeat opposing armies of pirates armed with their own paddle-wheel ships. At the Battle of Caishi in 1161, paddle-wheelers were also used with great success against the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) navy. The Chinese used the paddle-wheel ship even during the First Opium War (1839–1842) and for transport around the Pearl River during the early 20th century.
Seagoing paddle steamers
The first seagoing trip of a paddle steamer was by the Albany in 1808. It steamed from the Hudson River along the coast to the Delaware River. This was purely for the purpose of moving a riverboat to a new market, but paddle-steamers began regular short coastal trips soon after. In 1816 Pierre Andriel, a French businessman, bought in London the 15 hp paddle steamer Margery — later renamed Elise — and made an eventful London-Le Havre-Paris crossing, encountering heavy weather on the way. He later operated his ship as a river packet on the Seine between Paris and Le Havre.
The first paddle-steamer to make a long ocean voyage crossing the Atlantic Ocean was SS Savannah, built in 1819 expressly for this service. Savannah set out for Liverpool on May 22, 1819, sighting Ireland after 23 days at sea. This was the first powered crossing of the Atlantic, although Savannah was built as a sailing ship with a steam auxiliary; she also carried a full rig of sail for when winds were favorable, being unable to complete the voyage under power alone. In 1822, Charles Napier's Aaron Manby, the world's first iron ship, made the first direct steam crossing from London to Paris and the first seagoing voyage by an iron ship.
In 1838, Sirius, a fairly small steam packet built for the Cork to London route, became the first vessel to cross the Atlantic under sustained steam power, beating Isambard Kingdom Brunel's much larger Great Western by a day. Great Western, however, was actually built for the transatlantic trade, and so had sufficient coal for the passage; Sirius had to burn furniture and other items after running out of coal. Great Western's more successful crossing began the regular sailing of powered vessels across the Atlantic. Beaver was the first coastal steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Paddle steamers helped open Japan to the Western World in the mid-19th century.
The largest paddle-steamer ever built was Brunel's Great Eastern, but it also had screw propulsion and sail rigging. It was 692 feet long and weighed 32,000 tons, its paddlewheels being 56 feet in diameter.
In oceangoing service, paddle steamers became much less useful after the invention of the screw propeller, but they remained in use in coastal service and as river tugboats, thanks to their shallow draught and good maneuverability.
The last crossing of the Atlantic by paddle steamer began on September 18, 1969, to conclude six months and nine days later. The steam paddle tug Eppleton Hall was never intended for oceangoing service but was steamed from Newcastle to San Francisco. As the voyage was intended to be completed under power, the tug was rigged as steam-propelled with a sail auxiliary. The transatlantic stage of the voyage was completed exactly 150 years after the voyage of Savannah.
Paddle frigates
Beginning in the 1820s, the British Royal Navy began building paddle-driven steam frigates and steam sloops. By 1850 these had become obsolete due to the development of the propeller — which was more efficient and less vulnerable to cannon fire. One of the first screw-driven warships, HMS Rattler in 1843, demonstrated her superiority over paddle steamers during numerous trials, including one in 1845 where she pulled a paddle-driven sister ship backwards in a tug of war. However, paddle warships were used extensively by the Russian Navy during the Crimean War of 1853–1856 and by the United States Navy during the Mexican War of 1846–1848 and the American Civil War of 1861–1865. With the arrival of ironclad battleships from the late 1850s, the last remaining paddle frigates were decommissioned and sold into merchant-navy service by the 1870s. These included Miami, which became one of the first Boston steamers in 1867.
Paddle minesweepers
At the start of the First World War, the Royal Navy requisitioned more than 50 pleasure paddle steamers for use as auxiliary minesweepers. The large spaces on their decks intended for promenading passengers proved to be ideal for handling the minesweeping booms and cables, and the paddles allowed them to operate in coastal shallows and estuaries. These were so successful that a new class of paddle ships — the racecourse-class minesweepers — were ordered and 32 of them were built before the end of the war.
In the Second World War, some 30 pleasure paddle steamers were again requisitioned; an added advantage was that their wooden hulls did not activate the new magnetic mines. The paddle ships formed six minesweeping flotillas, based at ports around the British coast. Other paddle steamers were converted to anti-aircraft ships. More than 20 paddle steamers were used as emergency troop transports during the Dunkirk Evacuation in 1940, where they were able to get close inshore to embark directly from the beach. One example was PS Medway Queen, which saved an estimated 7,000 men over the nine days of the evacuation, and claimed to have shot down three German aircraft. Another paddle minesweeper, HMS Oriole, was deliberately beached twice to allow soldiers to cross to other vessels using her as a jetty. The paddle steamers between them were estimated to have rescued 26,000 Allied troops during the operation, for the loss of six of them.
U.S. and Canada
A few paddle steamers serve niche tourism needs as cruise boats on lakes and others, such as Delta Queen, still operate on the Mississippi River. In Oregon, several replica paddle steamers, which are non-steam-powered sternwheelers built in the 1980s and later, are operated for tourism purposes on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers.
USS Wolverine, built in 1912 as PS Seeandbee, was the biggest passenger-carrying paddle steamer ever built, with a capacity for 6,000 passengers; it was converted to a training aircraft carrier during World War II. PS Washington Irving, also built in 1912 with a capacity for 6,000 passengers, operated on the Hudson River from 1913 until it was sunk in an accident in 1926. One of the last paddle steamers built in the U.S. was the dredge William M. Black, built in 1934 and now a National Historic Landmark.
Belle of Louisville is the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat and was named a National Historic Landmark in 1989. Previously named Idlewild and Avalon, Belle of Louisville is based in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.
The Shelburne Museum of Vermont features the paddle steamer Ticonderoga, a preserved Lake Champlain ferry, which was transported overland to the museum after being retired from service in 1969, and is now open for tours.
The ferries system in Toronto, Ontario, Canada operates PS Trillium, a paddle steamer originally built in 1910 and restored for operation since 1976. It is the last sidewheel-propelled vessel on the Great Lakes. Sister ships Bluebell and Mayflower became garbage scows, and the former's hull is now a break wall in Toronto Harbor.
Germany
The Elbe river Saxon Paddle Steamer Fleet in Dresden, Germany — known as "White Fleet" — is the oldest and biggest in the world, with around 700,000 passengers per year. The 1913-built Goethe was the last paddle steamer on the River Rhine. Previously the world's largest sidewheeler with a two-cylinder steam engine of 700 hp, a length of 272 feet and a height above water of 30 feet, Goethe was converted to diesel-hydraulic power during the winter of 2008/09.
Paddle wheelers are still in operation on some lakes in Southern Bavaria, such as Diessen (161 feet) on Ammersee, built in 1908 and converted to a diesel system in 1975. It has been completely rebuilt in 2006. As paddle wheelers have proven to be such a great tourist attraction, a new one was even built in 2002 on Ammersee, Herrsching, but it has never been powered by steam. On Lake Chiemsee, RMS Ludwig Fessler (174 feet) is still in regular service. It was built in 1926 but has been powered by diesel engines since 1973. The original diesel engine was the last ship engine being built by Maffei — no. 576. This engine has ended up in Switzerland to drive the newly renovated Neuchâtel, launched in 2013.
Bangladesh
The era of paddle steamers in Bangladesh began in 1929 during the British colonial rule. At that time, there were many paddle steamers built by the British government for travel facilities as Bangladesh — Eastern Bengal at that time — is a riverine country. These paddle steamers are also known as Rocket Steamers because at that time these paddle steamers were the fastest water vessel. Now there are four paddle steamers on service. They are PS Mahsud built in 1929, PS Ostrich built in 1929, PS Tern built in 1937 and PS Lepcha built in 1948-49. PS Mahsud and PS Ostrich are the biggest paddle steamers. These paddle steamers run in the route of Dhaka-Chandpur-Barisal-Morrelganj. These paddle steamers are controlled & superintend by Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corp. These paddle steamers are 100 years of heritage of Bangladesh.
Norway
Skibladner is the oldest steamship in regular operation. Built in 1856, she still operates on lake Mjøsa in Norway.
Switzerland
Switzerland has a large paddle steamer fleet, most of the "salon steamer-type" built by Sulzer in Winterthur or Escher-Wyss in Zurich. There are five active and one inactive on Lake Lucerne, two on Lake Zurich and one each on Lake Brienz, Lake Thun and Lake Constance. Swiss company CGN operates a number of paddle steamers on Lake Geneva. Their fleet includes three converted to diesel electric power in the 1960s and five retaining steam. One, Montreux, was reconverted in 2000 from diesel to an all-new steam engine. It is the world's first electronically remote-controlled steam engine and has operating costs similar to state-of-the-art diesels, while producing up to 90% less air pollution.
Active vessels
Lakes of Biel, Morat and Neuchatel (connected by chanels): Neuchatel built in 1912
Lake Brienz: Lötschberg built in 1914
Lake Geneva: Montreux built in 1904, La Suisse II built in 1910, Savoie built in 1914, Simplon built in 1919 and Rhône III built in 1927
Lake Lucerne: Stadt Luzern built in1928 — last steam ship built for Switzerland, Uri built in 1901 — oldest Swiss paddle wheel steamer, Schiller built in 1906, Gallia built in 1913, Unterwalden built in 1902
Lake Thun: Blümlisalp built in 1906
Lake Zurich: Stadt Zürich built in 1909 and Stadt Rapperswil built in 1914
Note: The oldest active Swiss steamship is Greif built in 1895, on Lake Greifensee, with screw propulsion.
Australia
Australia has a large collection of authentic and replica paddle steamers and paddle boats operating along the Murray and Darling Rivers and in other areas around the country. Echuca/Moama has the largest fleet of paddle steamers in Australia, with seven of them operating commercially and a large number of smaller privately owned vessels.
PS Adelaide is the oldest wooden-hulled paddle steamer in the world. Built in 1866, she operates from the Port of Echuca, on Australia's Murray River, which has the largest fleet of paddle steamers in the world.
PS Pevensey built 1911 in Moama and based in Echuca is still working as a tourist attraction on the Murray River. Pevensey also starred as the fictional paddle steamer Philadelphia in the TV series “All the Rivers Run.”
PS Alexander Arbuthnot built 1923 at Koondrook, named after the former owner of the Arbuthnot Sawmills, works today as a tourist boat at the Port of Echuca.
PS Canberra, built 1913 at Goolwa, is currently operating public cruises in Echuca. Canberra was built for the Conner family of Boundary Bend as their flagship fishing vessel, however has been in the tourism industry since 1944.
PS Emmylou, a replica steamer was built in 1982 at Barham, and operates a large range of cruises in Echuca – from one-hour sightseeing trips to 3 night/4 day fully accommodated voyages. She is powered by an authentic steam engine, dating back to 1906.
PS Melbourne, built 1912, operates sightseeing cruises from Mildura.
PS Murray Princess is the largest of the paddle wheelers operating in Australia, although she is a recent build in 1987. Murray Princess measures in around 210 feet in length, 45 feet in width and has a remarkably shallow draft of 3 feet. It has accommodation for 120 passengers and up to 30 crew and operates 3, 4 & 7 night cruises along the Murray from Mannum in South Australia. Murray Princess was owned and operated for many years by Captain Cook Cruises in Sydney but has recently been sold to Sealink Travel Group based in Adelaide.
The replica paddle steamer Curlip was constructed in Gippsland, Australia, and launched in November 2008.
PS Kookaburra Queen services the Brisbane River, operating as a floating restaurant or venue for hire.
PS Enterprise, which was built in Echuca in 1876–78, was used on the Murray River, the Darling River and the Murrumbidgee River in New South Wales. She was acquired by the National Museum of Australia in 1984, restored to full working order, and is now berthed as an exhibit outside the Museum at a wharf on the Acton Peninsula, Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra.
PS Marion, based at Mannum.
The paddle wheeler Nepean Belle operates cruises on the Nepean River at Penrith, New South Wales.
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