Sail to Steam Transition

The sail-to-steam transition was the gradual displacement of sail by the screw-driven steamer over the mid to late nineteenth century. Early paddle steamers worked rivers and short sea routes; the screw propeller, the compound and later triple-expansion engine, iron and then steel hulls, and the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal made the steamer cheaper and more reliable on long routes. Sail held on in bulk trades like grain and nitrate into the windjammer era of the early twentieth century before the motor ship completed the change.