Steam yacht
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A steam yacht is a class of luxury or commercial yacht with primary or secondary steam propulsion in addition to the sails usually carried by yachts.
Origin of the name
The English steamboat entrepreneur George Dodd (1783–1827) used the term "steam yacht" to describe the steamer Thames, ex Duke of Argyle. Her service on the river had first been advertised on 22 June 1815 as "Thames Steam Yacht", intended to emphasise how luxurious these vessels were.[1][2]
Earliest steam yachts
The first two private steam yachts known were:
- Endeavour, a wooden paddle steamer registered 28 January 1828 by builders Rawlinson and Lyon, Lambeth, 75’6” x 12’ x 7’2”, 25 tons with a 20 HP Maudslay patent[3] oscillating engine with two cylinders 20in. dia. X 2 ft. stroke, and registered to the eminent English engineer Henry Maudslay,[4] London on 21 February 1828, who used her as his private steam yacht. The eminent Scottish engineer James Nasmyth mentions a trip aboard her to Richmond.[5]
- Swift, a wooden sailing smack built in 1803 at Bridport by Booles & Good, not registered. Unknown owners at Leith in 1804; documents missing.[6] Converted to a paddle steamer, described as a steam yacht, and registered by T. West, H. Bellingham, E. H. Creasey and others of Brighton on 21 August 1822 at Shoreham-by-Sea, 106’5” x 23’1” x 10’8”, 143 tons. They ran her as a ferry between Brighton and Dieppe.[7][8] She was sold to G. Crichton, R. Ogilvie & others in Leith in February 1824.[9] Crichton & Ogilvie were well-known managers.[10] She was sold to H. Templer in London in September 1827[11] and finally to Turkey in October 1828 when she became the Sultan's steam yacht Surat,[12] later taken into the Ottoman Navy as its first steam vessel.
In England around 1901, some steam-powered
Types
The term "steam yacht" encompasses vessels of several distinct uses, but of similar design.
Luxury yachts
A luxury yacht in the modern sense is a vessel owned privately and used for pleasure or non-commercial purposes. Steam yachts of this type came to prominence from the 1840s to the early-20th century in Europe. The first British royal yacht was Victoria & Albert of 1843. Nominally the first steam yacht in the United States was Cornelius Vanderbilt's North Star, launched in 1854; however, this was actually a full-size steamship fitted out for the personal use of Vanderbilt and his family, and left no legacy on steam yacht design.[18] The first true steam yachts known to have been built in the United States, Leonard Jerome's Clara Clarita and R. F. Loper's Wave, were completed in 1864.[18]
Steam yachts were commissioned by wealthy individuals and often heads of state as extravagant symbols of wealth and/or power.
Statistics show that Clydeside was the premier building area for steam yachts in the United Kingdom: 43 shipbuilding yards on Clydeside built 190 steam yachts between 1830 and 1935.[citation needed] Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd of Greenock Scotland built 23 steam yachts between 1876 and 1904.[20]
The auxiliary steam yacht is a class of steam yacht in the luxury category. In 1876-77, British politician
Commercial yachts
Those of the second class of steam yacht were built for commercial use, but gained the 'yacht' title due to their size and design similarity with the private vessels and because they were not constructed to be mainly cargo- or passenger-carrying vessels, but as versatile, low-
The light, fast design of a steam yacht was ideal for chasing whales, and the lack of a large amount of cargo space did not matter as whaling produced few bulky products. Commercial steam yachts were rarely as ornate or luxurious as their private counterparts, with simpler, more rugged lines and usually a more practical sailing rig. Steam yachts used in the whaling trade often had reinforced hulls to allow them to operate amongst the ice of frozen waters.
This meant that several whaling-yachts crossed the definition from commercial to private yacht in later life when they were bought for polar exploration work. Since these expeditions were, by and large, privately funded the ships used became, by definition, private steam yachts and many were registered with the 'SY' prefix used for such craft. The
The
In the
Steam yachts often used the ship prefix SY, but some were alternatively described as screw schooner, if they carried schooner rig. A fine example of the screw schooner is the 125 year old British Amazon, built at Southampton in 1885 from designs by the renowned Dixon Kemp and still in use in the USA after crossing the Atlantic in 2009, although diesel-propelled since 1937. She was photographed on Columbus Day 2009 on a mooring near the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island.[25]
Examples
Aurora built by Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd, Glasgow in 1876 (a former whaling-yacht turned Antarctic exploration vessel) is a notable example of the class, as are the Victorian era yachts used by European monarchs, such as the HMY Victoria and Albert III and the SMY Hohenzollern. One of the oldest steam yachts, and one of the few still surviving today, is the Kheideval Yacht, Mahroussa, which was built in 1865 and was maintained in seaworthy condition by the Egyptian government.
The
and used to relay espionage messages from operatives onshore (and briefly used by the Jewish "Nili" espionage group).See also
References
- ^ "The Thames Steam Yacht". The Morning Post. No. 13, 860. London. 22 June 1815. p. 1. Retrieved 14 July 2022 – via British Newspaper Archive.
- ^ Parliamentary Report of 24 June 1817, 29
- ^ British Patent No. 3050, 1807, "Steam Engines"
- ^ The National Archives BT107/52, No. 55
- ^ Nasmyth, James (1883). James Nasmyth, Engineer: An Autobiography. London: John Murray. p. not cited.
- ^ Hawks, Fred, World Ship Society CD No. 2
- ^ The National Archives, BT107/169, Shoreham No.15.
- ^ Parliamentary Report 1822, page 201.
- ^ BT107/408.
- ^ Martine, John (1888). Reminiscences of the port and town of Leith. Edinburgh: John Martine. p. 4.
- ^ "Piece reference BT 107/51—Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Transcripts and Transactions, Series I—London Foreign Trade—Ports: 277 - 503, No. 379". The Catalogue. The National Archives.
- ^ "Piece reference BT 107/51—Registry of Shipping and Seamen: Transcripts and Transactions, Series I—London Foreign Trade—Ports: 277 - 503, No. 383". The Catalogue. The National Archives.
- ^ Boase, George Clement (1898). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 53. pp. 134–135.
- ^ Dawson, C (August 2006). "Thomas Assheton Smith's Steam Yachts". The Mariner's Mirror. 92 (3).
- ^ Eardley-Wilmot, Sir John E., ed. (1860). Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq. London: John Murray. p. 55.
- ^ Kemp, Dixon, Steam Yachts, RINA 24th Session, 15 March 1883
- ^ "Fairground Sale Steams Ahead". BBC News online. 11 October 2002.
- ^ a b Stephens, William Picard (1904). "Steam Yachting in America". American Yachting. New York: The MacMillan Company. pp. 399–342.
- ^ Marine Engineering. Vol. 4. Marine Publication Co. 1899. pp. 142–144.
- ^ Two Centuries of Shipbuilding by the Scotts at Greenock. London: Scotts. 1906.
- ^ Brassey, Earl Thomas (1917). Sunbeam RYS. Voyages & Experiences in Many Waters. London: John Murray. p. Chapter V.
- ^ World Ship Society Yard List No 169/5.
- ISBN 0851776183.
- ^ ISBN 1861760329.
- ^ "1885 British screw schooner Amazon at Bristol RI Columbus Day 2009". Archived from the original on January 8, 2011. Retrieved March 24, 2011.
- ^ MAFF (1992). The Directorate of Fisheries Research: Its Origins and Development. Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Lowestoft. 332pp.