SS Savannah Crosses Atlantic: The Steam Age Begins at Sea

The SS Savannah arrived at Liverpool on June 20, 1819, completing the first transatlantic crossing by a vessel equipped with a steam engine. The achievement was genuine but heavily qualified: the Savannah used its paddle wheels for only about eighty hours of the twenty-nine-day voyage, relying on sails for the remaining distance. The ship was a full-rigged sailing vessel with an auxiliary steam engine, not a steamship in the modern sense, and its crossing demonstrated both the promise and the severe limitations of early marine steam power. The Savannah was built as a sailing packet in New York and retrofitted with a 90-horsepower steam engine and collapsible paddle wheels that could be folded onto the deck when not in use. Captain Moses Rogers, a Connecticut mariner who had operated steamboats on American rivers, commanded the vessel. The ship carried no paying passengers on its transatlantic crossing, partly because potential travelers feared the boiler and considered steam propulsion dangerous. The vessel departed Savannah, Georgia, on May 22, 1819, and attracted attention from the moment it entered open ocean. Off the coast of Ireland, a revenue cutter spotted smoke from the Savannah's stack and gave chase, believing the ship was on fire. Upon arrival at Liverpool, the Savannah drew crowds and earned favorable press coverage, but the voyage failed commercially. No buyers materialized for either the ship or its technology. Rogers continued to Stockholm and St. Petersburg, hoping to sell the vessel to European royalty, without success. The Savannah's steam engine and paddle wheels were eventually removed, and the ship returned to service as an ordinary sailing vessel. Steam would not dominate transatlantic travel for another three decades, until the reliability of marine engines improved and iron hulls replaced wooden ones. The first crossing made entirely under steam power was completed by the Royal William in 1833.