National Maritime day takes place annuallly on 22 May in the United States to commemorate the anniversary of the voyage of the first steam ship to successfully cross of the Atlantic Ocean using steam propulsion, The SS Savannah, which steamed from the United States to England on 22 May, 1819. The SS Savannah was an American hybrid sailing ship/sidewheel steamer built in 1818. In spite of this historic voyage, the great space taken up by her large engine and its fuel at the expense of cargo, and the public’s anxiety over embracing her revolutionary steam power, kept Savannah from being a commercial success as a steamship. SS Savanah was Originally laid down as a sailing packet and following a severe and unrelated reversal of the financial fortunes of her owners she was was converted back into a sailing ship shortly after returning from Europe.
The SS Savannah remained at her home port until December 3, when she set sail for Washington, D.C., arriving there on the 16th. In January 1820, a great fire swept through the city of Savannah, doing severe damage to the business district. The owners of the Savannah, William Scarbrough and his partners, suffered losses in the fire and were forced to sell the ship. Savannah’s engine was removed and resold for the sum of $1,600 to the Allaire Iron Works, which had originally built the engine cylinder. The cylinder was preserved by the proprietor of the Allaire Works, James P. Allaire, and was later displayed at the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1856. After removal of the engine, the ship was used as a sailing packet, operating between New York and Savannah, Georgia, until running aground along the south shore of Long Island on November 5, 1821, and subsequently breaking up
Nevertheless the SS Savannah had proven that a steamship was a viable propostion and was capable of crossing the ocean, but the public was not yet prepared to trust such means of conveyance on the open sea, and the large amount of space taken up by the engine and its fuel made the ship uneconomic. It took 20 years before steamships began making regular crossings of the Atlantic when Two British sidewheel steamships, Brunel’s SS Great Western and Menzies’ SS Sirius, raced to New York in 1838, both using steam alone. No No other American-owned steamship would cross the Atlantic until 1847, almost thirty years after Savannah’s pioneering voyage.
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