Steamer

A steamer is large a Navire specialized in the Transport of passengers. This name comes from the English packet-boat .

History

The term appeared in the middle of the 17th century and indicated the ships charged to transport the mail ( packet ). It happened that they transport some passengers. With the adaptation of the steam engine on the ships, the transport of passengers, become surer and fast, could be directed towards the transport of mass. The first steamers with vapors date from the neighborhoods of 1840.Ce was a revolution for the maritime transport.

Quickly the word steamer takes in the French language the direction of ship of very big size, rather luxurious. He knows his golden age, that of the transatlantic , until the Second world war for the transport of the emigrants towards the new world, and then, until worms the Sixties like single means of crossing the Atlantic Ocean before the development of the commercial aviation.

The steamers having been useful for these great connections through the oceans are called in English Liner S, and more particularly Transatlantique S for those which made the connections between the Europe and the Nouveau World. These boats could also transport goods, often the Courrier.

During the wars of the 20th century, the steamers could be requisitioned for transport of troop (example USS America) and material solid mass and occasionally like floating hospitals. The torpedoing of the Wilhelm Gustloff will make more than nine thousand victims.

One must make the difference between the steamer, affected with the great crossings and the Ferry-boat which transports also many passengers but on short distances and transports at the origin of the trains then vehicles. In France, for example, it is Havre which the transatlantic liners left towards New York while Marseilles was the Home port of those serving the the Mediterranean the Black Africa and the Far East.

From the years 1960, the use of the steamer as means of transport becomes nonprofitable vis-a-vis the plane. These ships are reconverted into a use in Croisière S of approval. During the Seventies and Eighties, it seems that this activity is brought to disappear especially in Europe. But she knows a spectacular revival with the beginning of the year 1990, related on the development of the leisures, an increase in the standard of living of the middle-classes, on the fall of the air transport charges (to convey the passengers for the zones of cruisings) and to the employment of personnel of country at low cost. The 21e century thus sees a very strong increase in the number and size of the steamers of cruising launched, steamers mainly intended to operate in the basin the Caribbean or in the Mediterranean.

Traditional steamers

The traditional steamers are those which made the legend of it, of the years 1900 to 1960, the greatest part of them disappeared.

Modern steamers

The current steamers, of recent construction, are primarily commercial cruising ships.

The Freedom off the Seas (June 2006). This steamer with walls of climbing, skating rink and swimming pool with waves, has a capacity of 3.634 passengers (600 of more than the QM2) what raises some interrogations as for the management of such a quantity of people to the sea, in particular for the stations of abandonment of the ship.

The Armateur is the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line which will launch in 2009 the Genesis which will be able to accommodate 5.400 passengers.

The steamer " Diamant" , of the general CMA-Company maritime-French Line, the great return of French cruisings symbolizes.

List heavier steamers

List famous steamers

The United Kingdom

Canada

The United States

France

Italy

Germany

Netherlands

  • the Nieuw Amsterdam

Ports of French call

See too

  • alphabetical List of the names of steamers
  • Boat
  • Transatlantic Ship
  • Liner

External bonds

  • See a detailed diagram of a Steamer
  • '' The Ship List '', list of all the steamers builds since XIXe S. with the lists of passengers
  • Forum on the deck chairs.
  • Database of more than 120 modern steamers (descriptions, photographs,…)

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