SS Archimedes
SS Archimedes
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| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Archimedes |
| Namesake: | Archimedes of Syracuse |
| Owner: | Ship Propeller Company |
| Builder: | Henry Wimshurst, |
| Cost: | £10,500 |
| Launched: | 18 October 1838 |
| Completed: | 1839 |
| Maiden voyage: | 2 May 1839 |
| In service: | 2 May 1839 |
| Out of service: | 1 March 1864 |
| Refit: | As a sailing ship, date unknown |
| Fate: | Reportedly grounded and sank in the mouth of the Meuse River, 1864 51°55′6″N 4°3′2″E / 51.91833°N 4.05056°E. |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steam powered schooner |
| Tons burthen: | 237 |
| Length: | 125 ft (38 m) |
| Beam: | 22 ft (6.7 m) |
| Draught: | 8-9 ft (2.4-2.7 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 13 ft (4.0 m) |
| Installed power: | 2 × 30 HP, 25-30 rpm twin-cylinder Rennie vertical steam engines, with 37-inch cylinders and 3-foot stroke |
| Propulsion: | 1 x full helix, single turn, single threaded iron propeller operating at 130-150 rpm, auxiliary sails |
| Sail plan: | Three-masted, schooner-rigged |
| Speed: | About 10mph (under steam) |
| Notes: | World's first screw-propelled steamship |
SS Archimedes was a steamship built in Britain in 1839. She is notable for being the world's first steamship to be driven by a screw propeller.
Archimedes had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging the adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy, in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. She also had a direct influence on the design of another innovative vessel, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, then the world's largest ship and the first screw-propelled steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The principle of moving water with a screw has been known since the invention of the Archimedes' screw, named after Archimedes of Syracuse who lived in the 3rd Century BC. It was not until the 18th century however, and the invention of the steam engine, that a practical means of delivering effective power to a marine screw propulsion system became available, but initial attempts to build such a vessel met with failure.
In 1807, the world's first commercially successful steam-powered vessel, Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat, made its debut. As this vessel was powered by paddlewheels rather than a propeller, the paddlewheel thereby became the de facto early standard for steamship propulsion. Experimentation with screw propulsion continued in some quarters, however, and between 1750 and the 1830s numerous patents for marine propellers were taken out by various inventors, though few of these inventions were pursued to the testing stage, and those that were proved unsatisfactory for one reason or another.
In 1835, two inventors in Britain, John Ericsson and Francis Pettit Smith, began working separately on the problem. Smith, a farmer by trade who had entertained a lifelong fascination with screw propulsion, was first to take out a screw propeller patent on 31 May, while Ericsson, a gifted Swedish engineer then working in Britain, filed his patent six weeks later.
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Wikipedia