SS Christopher Columbus
SS Christopher Columbus
A painting by Great Lakes marine artist Howard Sprague showing the ship in white livery, as she appeared in 1893. |
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
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| Name: | Christopher Columbus |
| Owner: |
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| Builder: | American Steel Barge Company |
| Yard number: | 00128 |
| Laid down: | September 13, 1892 |
| Launched: | December 3, 1892 |
| Christened: | May 13, 1893 |
| Out of service: | 1933 |
| Homeport: | Chicago, Illinois |
| Fate: | scrapped 1936 |
| General characteristics | |
| Tonnage: | 1,511 GRT (4,279 m3) |
| Length: | 362 ft (110 m) |
| Beam: | 42 ft (13 m) |
| Depth: | 24 ft (7 m) |
| Propulsion: | Six boilers powering two reciprocating triple expansion steam engines, single screw |
| Speed: | 17 knots (20 mph; 31 km/h) |
| Capacity: | 5,000 passengers |
| Notes: | Only passenger whaleback ever built |
The SS Christopher Columbus was an American excursion liner on the Great Lakes, in service between 1893 and 1933. She was the only whaleback ship ever built for passenger service. The ship was designed by Alexander McDougall, the developer and promoter of the whaleback design.
Columbus was built between 1892 and 1893 at Superior, Wisconsin, by the American Steel Barge Company. Initially, she ferried passengers to and from the World's Columbian Exposition. Later, she provided general transportation and excursion services to various ports around the lakes.
At 362 feet (110 m), the ship was the longest whaleback ever built, and reportedly also the largest vessel on the Great Lakes when she was launched.Columbus is said to have carried more passengers during her career than any other vessel on the Great Lakes. After a career lasting four decades, she was retired during the Great Depression and scrapped in 1936 by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company at Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
The history of the Columbus is linked with that of the whalebacks, an innovative but not widely accepted ship design of the late 1880s, and of their designer, Alexander McDougall. A Scottish immigrant, Great Lakes captain, inventor and entrepreneur, McDougall developed the idea of the whaleback as a way to improve the ability of barges to follow a towing vessel in heavy seas. Whalebacks were characterized by distinctive hull shapes with rounded tops, lacking conventional vertical sides. Waves thus broke across their hulls with considerably less force than when striking a conventional hull. Water could also flow around the rounded turrets which resembled gun turrets on contemporary warships; the superstructure and deckhouses were mounted on these turrets. The rounded contours of whalebacks gave them an unconventional appearance, and McDougall's ship and barge designs were received with considerable skepticism, resistance, and derision. As they had porcine-looking snouts for bows, some observers called them "pig boats".
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