Paddle Steamer

Definition: Paddle Steamer

Paddle Steamer

Noun

1. A steam vessel propelled by paddle wheels.

Synonym: Paddle Steamer

Synonym: paddle-wheeler (n). (additional references)

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Specialty Definition: Paddle steamer

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

A paddle steamer is a ship driven by one or more paddle wheels driven by a steam engine. The paddle steamer is obsolete technology and few if any have been built since the 1940s.

The paddle wheel is a large wheel, generally built of a steel framework, upon the outer edge of which are fitted numerous paddle blades (called floats). It is placed in the water so that the bottom quarter or so is underwater. Rotation of the paddle wheel produces thrust, forwards or backwards as required. More advanced paddle wheel designs have featured feathering methods that keep the paddle blade pointing closer to vertically downwards during the period it's in the water; this increases efficiency.

Early Developments

The first paddle steamer was the Pyroscaphe built by Marquis Claude de Jouffroy of Lyons in France, built in 1783. It had a horizontal double-acting steam engine driving two 13.1 ft paddle wheels on the sides of the craft. On July 15, 1783 it steamed successfully up the Saône for fifteen minutes before the engine failed. Political events disturbed further development.

The next attempt at a paddle-driven steam ship was by the Scottish engineer William Symington. Experimental boats built in 1788 and 1789 worked successfully; in 1802, Symington built a barge-hauler, Charlotte Dundas, for the Forth and Clyde Canal Company. It successfully hauled two 70-ton barges almost 20 miles in 6 hours against a strong headwind on test in 1802. There was much enthusiasm, 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 North River Steam Boat in New York, which went into commercial service in 1807 between New York and Albany. Many other paddle-equipped river boats followed all round the world.

Seagoing Paddle Steamers

The first sea-going trip of a paddle steamer was the Albany, which was sailed from the Hudson River around the coast to the Delaware River in 1808. This was purely for the purposes of moving a river-boat to a new market, but the use of paddle-steamers for short coastal trips began soon after that.

The first paddle-steamer to make a long ocean voyage was the Savannah, built in 1819 expressly for this service. Savannah set sail for Liverpool on [[May 22], 1819, sighting Ireland after 23 days at sea. This was the first powered crossing of the Atlantic, although Savannah also carried a full rig of sail to assist the engines when winds were favorable.

The Sirius in 1838, 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 its crossing began the regular sailing of powered vessels across the Atlantic.

In oceangoing service, the paddle steamer became obsolete rather quickly with the invention of the screw propeller, but they remained in use in coastal service, thanks to their shallow draught and good maneuverability.

Types of Paddle Steamer

There are two basic ways to mount paddle wheels on a ship; a single wheel on the rear, known as a stern-wheeler, and two paddle wheels on the sides, known as a side-wheeler.

Stern-wheelers have generally been used as riverboats, especially in the United States, where they still operate for tourist use primarily on the Mississippi River. On a river, the narrowness of a stern-wheeler is preferable.

Side-wheelers, meanwhile, have also been used as riverboats, but also commonly as coastal craft. While wider than a stern-wheeler thanks to the extra width of the paddle wheels and their enclosing pontoons, the side-wheeler has extra maneuverability thanks to the common ability to direct the drive to only one wheel at a time.

Paddle steamers today

Being a long obsolete technology, the few paddle steamers still operating are deliberate anachronisms, preserved for tourists or as museums. Some paddle steamers still operate on the Mississippi River, as do a couple in the United Kingdom; the coastal paddle steamer PS Waverley, built for service in the Firth of Clyde, is the last seagoing paddle steamer in operation anywhere in the world. It belonged to a commercial ferry company until 1973, at which point it was purchased by a preservation society as an operating museum piece. It sails occasionally in the summer from various British ports.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Paddle steamer."

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Crosswords: Paddle Steamer

English words defined with "paddle steamer": Side-wheel, side-wheeler, Stern-wheel, sternwheeler. (references)

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Commercial Usage: Paddle Steamer

Domain	Title
Books	A decline of the paddle steamer (reference) The story of Medway Queen : a paddle steamer that went to war (reference) The story of the paddle steamer (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Paddle Steamer

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
paddle steamer	10
clyde paddle steamer	8
paddle steamer waverley	6
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Paddle Steamer

Language		Translations for "paddle steamer"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Czech		kolesový parník. (various references)

German		raddampfer (paddle boat). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		外輪船 , 外車船 . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		がいしゃせ�", がいり�"せ�". (various references)

Pig Latin		addlepay eamerstay.(various references)

Romanian		navã cu roţi cu zbaturi. (various references)

Spanish		vapor de ruedas (paddle boat, side-wheeler, Wheeler). (various references)

Swedish		hjulångare (side-wheeler). (various references)

Turkish		yandan çarklı gemi (paddle boat), çarklı gemi. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Paddle Steamer

Language	Period	Translations
Latin	500 BCE-Modern	Cyclopterus lumpus. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Anagrams: Paddle Steamer

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-d-d-e-e-e-l-m-p-r-s-t"
	-3 letters: depredates, pedestaled, saddletree, stepladder.
	-4 letters: ameerates, asperated, astraddle, deaerated, deaerates, departees, depredate, desperate, malaperts, palestrae, permeated, permeates, plastered, readapted, repleaded, resampled, resmelted, restamped, separated, stampeded, stampeder, steamered.
	-5 letters: adapters, ameerate, amreetas, asperate, deaerate, dealated, dealates, deemster, demasted, demersal, dempster, departed, departee, depermed, depleted, depletes, desalted, desalter, deserted, emeralds, empalers, malapert, maleates, mastered, meddlers, paddlers, palestra, palmated, paltered, peddlers, pederast, pedestal, peltered, permease, permeate, pestered, petrales, pleaders, pleaters, predated, predates, prelates, rapeseed, readapts, relapsed, released, remelted, repasted, repealed, repeated, replated, replates, repleads, resaddle, resample, resealed, reseated, reslated, respaded, reteamed, separate, spraddle, stampede, steepled, stepdame, straddle, streamed, streeled, tampered, teaseled, teaseler, temperas, tempered, templars, trameled, trampled, tramples, trapesed, treadled, treadles, treddles.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.