Industrial Steam Era

The industrial steam era in shipping was the mid-nineteenth-century shift from sail to steam on long-distance trades, driven by iron and then steel hulls, the screw propeller, and more efficient boilers. Brunel’s SS Great Western (1838) and the iron screw steamer SS Great Britain (1843) demonstrated regular transatlantic steam service. Early plants burned large coal volumes, so steamers needed coaling stations along their routes; the 1869 Suez Canal opening then favored steam over sail on the Europe to Asia run.