Today’s Almanac-April 23, 2010
When the S.S. Great Western sailed into New York harbor on April 23, 1838, she marked a revolution in regular Trans-Atlantic passenger service and communication. The sleek 2,300 ton vessel was the first steam ship built and completed specifically for the Atlantic service and the first ship to ply a regularly schedule between Britain and the U.S. She was propelled by two paddlewheels mounted opposite each other amidships and powered by a state-of-the-art 750 Horsepower two cylinder steam engine. She had an iron-strapped oaken hull and had four masts carrying auxiliary sail. The sail was not just a back-up in case the engines failed. In rough seas they could be deployed to stabilize the ship and keep both wheels in the water. She was the brain child of Isambard Brunel who assembled a group of investors in Bristol to build her and launch a new shipping line for passenger traffic. Others were working to do the same, particularly the rival British and American Steam Navigation Company. When the rival company’s construction of their first ship lagged, they hired the costal steamer S.S. Sirus to make the run. They had to strip staterooms from the ship to make room for extra coal bunkers, but the undersized ship would be hard pressed to have enough fuel to make the crossing. The Sirus left London three days before the Great Western sailed for her home port of Bristol to take on passengers. She had suffered a small engine room fire and was delayed departing Bristol until April 8. Meanwhile the Sirus, refueling at Cork had departed the Irish port on April 4. The fire cost the Great Western more than time. Brunel was injured in a fall during the confusion over the fire and had to be put ashore. Worse, the bad publicity caused more than 50 passengers to cancel their bookings. The ship carried only 7 paying passengers on her maiden run. Despite the misadventures, the Great Western gained on her undersized competition during the crossing. As the two ships neared the North American coast, the Sirus ran out of coal and her crew had to strip the ship of furniture, spare yard arms and even a mast to keep the boiler roaring. She limped into New York on April 22. But when the Great Western arrived the next day, she still had coal in her bunkers and had handily bested the Sirus’s actual crossing time. The Sirus’s ignominious fate helped sink the rival British and American firm leaving the Great Western company in command of the route for some time. The ship made and broke trans-Atlantic crossing times both ways multiple times. Her average east to west crossing was 16 days and 13 days and 9 hours from New York to Bristol. She became the model for a generation of steam packets until screw propelled, iron hulled ships replaced them after the Civil Way. Although The Great Western herself was profitable, the company struggled with years of delay in building a companion ship. When that ship ran aground just months after finally being launched in 1846, The Great Western Steamship Company went bankrupt. In all the Great Western made 45 round-trip crossing until she was sold to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company for use on its less prestigious Caribbean service in 1847. The British government acquired her for hard service as a troop transport during the Crimean War in 1855. Too expensive to refit for passenger service again, she was broken up for scrap the following year. The Great Western and the other ships like her that were soon connecting the U.S. with European ports greatly improved both the reliability and safety of trans-Atlantic travel. Speedier voyages and the smaller crews required for steam packets also dramatically cut fares. Thousands of Americans annually could now visit Europe for business and pleasure. The “Grand Tour” became standard for members of the burgeoning moneyed elite, but artists, writers, students, and scientists of more modest means also could make the trip which vastly increased the cultural cross fertilization between the continents. Lower ticket prices also meant more immigrants could afford the fare to the New World, feeding the labor-starved industries of the U.S. with a steady stream that became a flood of new immigrants