Steam Yacht - Types

Types

The term "steam yacht" encompasses vessels of two distinct uses, but of similar design. 1. The first is a luxury yacht in the modern sense—a vessel owned privately and used for pleasure or non-commercial purposes. Steam yachts of this type came to prominence from the 1840s to the early-20th century in Europe. The first British royal yacht was Victoria & Albert of 1843. The first in the USA, Vanderbilt's steam yacht North Star, was from 1854: steam yachts were commissioned by wealthy individuals and often heads of state as extravagant symbols of wealth and/or power. They were usually built with similar hull-lines to clipper ships, with an ornate bow structure and a low, smooth freeboard. Main propulsion usually came from one or two steam engines, later of compound type, or in even later, very large yachts, triple expansion or turbines. Steam yachts usually carried rigging for sails, originally as an auxiliary propulsion system, but later more for show and naval tradition. Private steam yachts were capable of long seagoing voyages, but their owners' needs and habits saw most stay near to the coast. Inland seas such as the Baltic and the Mediterranean were popular areas for using steam yachts.

Statistics show that Clydeside was the premier building area for steam yachts: 43 shipbuilding yards on Clydeside built 190 steam yachts between 1830 and 1935. Scotts Shipbuilding & Engineering Co Ltd of Greenock Scotland built 23 steam yachts between 1876 and 1904. 2. Those of the second class of steam yacht were built for commercial use, but gained the 'yacht' title due to their size and design similarity with the private vessels and because they were not constructed to be mainly cargo- or passenger-carrying vessels, but as versatile, low-draft ships capable of working local coastal routes. This is closer to the original meaning of the word "yacht", coming from the Dutch term Jacht, describing a small, fast commercial vessel. The distinction between a commercial steam yacht and a coastal trading vessel is not a clear one, but the latter term usually implies a mainly cargo-carrying ship. Steam yachts were often run by Packet Companies operating regular, timetabled services between islands or coastal towns. Steam yachts were widely used in the whaling trade. The light, fast design of a steam yacht was ideal for chasing whales, and the lack of a large amount of cargo space did not matter as whaling produced few bulky products. Commercial steam yachts were rarely as ornate or luxurious as their private counterparts, with simpler, more rugged lines and usually a more practical sailing rig. Steam yachts used in the whaling trade often had reinforced hulls to allow them to operate amongst the ice of frozen waters.

The Royal Navy used small numbers of steam yacht-type vessels from the Victorian era onwards to transport men and equipment in harbour, act as coastal escorts for larger ships and for training and exercises. A good example of this was the iron p.s. Fire Queen built for the entrepreneur Thomas Assheton Smith (II) (1776–1858), (his first of three Fire Queen's) by Robert Napier, Govan, Glasgow and launched on 27 July 1844, Napier Yard No 5, engine No 88. She was bought by the British Admiralty in July 1847 for £5,000 for use as a tender; there is an illustration (incorrectly captioned) of her in that role. She was sold on 4 August 1883 for £1,100 by the Admiralty to Castle the shipbreakers. Fire Queen was replaced by the Admiralty by the former Steam yacht Candace, launched on 23 September 1881 by Ramage & Ferguson, Leith, bought by the Admiralty in 1882 and then duly renamed Fire Queen.

In the First World War vessels such as these and several requisitioned private yachts were used on anti-U-Boat patrols and for minesweeping. It became clear that the naval trawler was more suited to these kinds of tasks. Steam yachts often used the ship prefix SY, but some were alternatively described as screw schooner, if they carried schooner rig. A fine example of the screw schooner is the 125 year old British Amazon, built at Southampton in 1885 from designs by the renowned Dixon Kemp and still in use in the USA after crossing the Atlantic in 2009, although Diesel-propelled since 1937. She was photographed on Columbus Day 2009 on a mooring near the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island.