Subsequently he made a series of tank experiments with models, and these resulted in the adoption of the fine wedge-shaped bows which distinguished the steamships he afterwards built. This was the origin of the first great departure from sailing-ship models in steamboat construction.
In 1820 regular communication between Dover and Calais was established by the Rob Roy, a Scotch-built boat. In the previous year the Talbot had been built by Wood for the Holyhead and Dublin service. She was 92 feet long by 18 feet beam with a tonnage of 150. For this boat D. Napier provided the engines, while the first steamer engined by Robert Napier was the Leven, built in 1823. The Leven’s engine, of the side-lever type, is still preserved on Dumbarton pier.
In 1822 the St. George Steam Packet Company launched two large and powerful steamers, the St. Patrick and St. George, for the trade between Liverpool and Dublin, and a few years later their Sea-Horse sailed weekly between Hull and Rotterdam. The Original Steam Packet Company also ran the Waterloo and the Belfast on this route. A third company was now projected. Mr. C. W. Williams of Dublin came over to Liverpool to seek financial support for his project of building steamers for the same route. Failing at Liverpool, he returned to Dublin and met with such encouragement that in the following February he came back to Liverpool, and placed an order with Wilson, popularly called “Frigate Wilson,” the leading shipbuilder of his time on the Mersey, for the first steamer of what was destined to become one of the most famous steamship companies in the world, the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. This vessel, the City of Dublin, was to be constructed to carry general cargo besides livestock and passengers, and to maintain the service throughout the year. She was probably the first steamer designed to carry both passengers and cargo. Williams saw that it was as much to the interest of merchants to have their goods delivered with regularity as it was to the interest of passengers to reach their destinations punctually.
The “Sea-Horse.” About 1826.
Merchants were equally quick to see the advantages of punctual delivery, and the Williams enterprise prospered. The following month he contracted with Wilson for the building of the Town of Liverpool, there being some delay in placing this contract as Wilson had just contracted to build the steamer Henry Bell for the Liverpool and Glasgow trade. The City of Dublin’s maiden voyage was made on March 20, 1824.
Meanwhile the Dublin and Liverpool Steam Navigation Company had been founded, and started trading operations in September 1824 with the steamer Liffey. In December of the same year the Mersey was added, and in 1825 the Commerce. The last named was the largest vessel so far employed in cross-channel traffic. She was built at Liverpool by Messrs. Grayson and Leadley.
The competition among the companies was exceedingly keen, and increased as they added to their respective fleets. The City of Dublin Company paid little heed to what was known as the Original Company, but found its work cut out in competing with the other two. The first really serious rate war broke out, and seems to have spread to the steamer companies in the Scottish and North of Ireland passenger trade.
Not content with cutting rates to vanishing-point, the northern rivals indulged in lively newspaper polemics in the shape of advertisements, which praised their own boats and gave the lie direct to the manifestos of their opponents. The owners of the Swift, sailing from Glasgow, advertised the “great superiority” of their vessel “over the cock boat that is puffed off as sailing direct from the Bromielaw.” “For the sake of strangers coming from a distance it may be proper to state that her power and size are double, and her speed so much greater, that when the two vessels start together the Swift runs the other out of sight in five or six hours.”
The George Canning was the vessel referred to in this contemptuous manner and her owners retorted in kind. Their advertisement referred to the “contemptible article in the Swift’s advertisement” as “stating a gross falsehood knowing it to be such.” The Swift is challenged to produce a single instance of ever having accomplished her passage from Belfast in so short a time as the George Canning, and the public are informed that the two have never yet sailed together either from Belfast or Glasgow, and the Swift is asked when and where she ran the other out of sight.[43] So matters went on until the Swift was sold to the London, Leith, and Edinburgh Shipping Company in 1826. The companies actually carried saloon passengers from Belfast to Glasgow for 2s. a head; second cabin passengers went for 6d., and deck passengers went free.