Archaeology Notes
Event ID 855466
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/855466
NR79NE 8001 7588 9876
N56 7.7333 W5 36.4
NLO: Craignish Point [name: NR 756 990]
Loch Crinan [name centred NR 790 950]
Crinan [name: NR 787 940]
Dorus Mor [name centred NR 757 995]
Jura [name centred NR 54 82]
Sound of Jura [name centred NR 64 78].
Formerly entered as Site no. 9071.
Not to be confused with Comet II (at NS c. 242 780), for which see NS27NW 8005.
For replica of this vessel (mounted in Shore Street, Port Glasgow at NS 3196 7465), see NS37SW 80.
For monuments to Henry Bell at Helensburgh Esplanade (NS 29381 82323) and Dunglass Castle (NS 4377 7353), see NS28SE 109 and NS47SW 123, respectively. For flywheel and anvil in Hermitage Park, Helensburgh (at NS 29855 82784), see NS28SE 236.
[No location of loss cited]. Henry Bell's 'Comet' was built by John Wood of Port Glasgow in 1812; she started a revolution in shipbuilding and a whole new industry in Britain. Bell started from the basis set by the work of William Symington, who constructed the 'Charlotte Dundas' which towed two 70-ton barges for 19.5 miles [31.4km] along the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1801, but was constrained by claims of paddle-damage to the banks. Bell, who was then employed in running Helensburgh Baths (a hydropathic establishment), recognised the potential of the performance of the steam engine (designed by James Watt) that pumped seawater into the bathing tanks.
In 1811, Wood agreed to build the vessel if Bell found the engine. This was bought for £165, the boiler being obtained on credit, a debt which the vessel was never able to pay off.
Named after a heavenly body seen while she was under trials, and used to carry passengers from Glasgow and Greenock to the Helensburgh baths, the vessel made passage from Glasgow to Greenock in 3.5 hours, as against the time of between 10 and 12 hours previously taken by the fly-boat service. She was, however, too small to be a paying proposition. In consequence, Bell had her lengthened by 20ft [6.1m], but better river steamships were already in service, some twenty such vessels being constructed within four years.
Bell took the vessel off this fiercely competitive route, and put her into more leisurely service to Inverness via the West Highlands and the Caledonian Canal. She was wrecked in December 1820, when driven by a rip-tide onto rocks at Craignish Point, near Oban. No lives were lost, and the engine was subsequently recovered, being used for many years to drive the machinery in a Glasgow coach-building works, and later in a brewery. It was presented to the Science Museum (London) in 1862.
[For details of replica of this vessel built in 1962, see NS37SW 80].
The Comet Trust c. 1970.
Quality of fix = PA
Horizontal Datum = OGB
Circumstances of Loss Details
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The COMET was the first passenger steamship, invented by Henry Bell in 1812. The vessel was wrecked in Dorus Mor channel when her engines could not cope with the tidal race and the vessel broke in two.
Source: Dictionary of Disasters at Sea.
Surveying Details
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5 March 1975. The vessel was wrecked on Dorus Mor (near Crinan) at 56 07 44N, 005 36 24W.
Report by P L Sellars letter dated 11 February 1975.
Hydrographic Office 1995.
(Classified as wooden, paddle steamship: no cargo specified, but date of loss cited as 13 December 1820). Comet: this vessel stranded at Craignish Point. Capt. Baine. [Lengthened: 1819].
Registration: Greenock. Built 1812. 29 tons burthern. Length: 22m. Beam: 3m.
(Location of loss cited as N56 7.73 W5 36.4).
I G Whittaker 1998.
The location cited for this wreck remains unverified. It is unclear whether any remains survive of this vessel.
The engine was salvaged for display in South Kensington, London [presumably in the Science Museum].
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 14 June 2002.
P Moir and I Crawford 1994.
Held in the Science Museum, South Kensington, London (under accession numbers SCM 1864-53, 1900-67 and 1903-43 respectively) there are the salvaged engine of this pioneer steamship, a rigged model of the vessel at 1:24 scale and an oil painting (attributed to Alexander Nasmyth) of about 1816. Six photographs presented by Mr James Wotherspoon are also held, apparently without formal accession number.
This vessel was the first paddle steamer to run commercially in Europe, being built of wood at Port Glasgow by Messrs. John Wood and Co., and launched in July 1812 to the order of Mr Bell. The steaming [service] speed of the vessel is recorded as about 6.7 knots. On her trials, in August 1812, she travelled from Glasgow to Greenock, a distance of about 20 miles, in 3 hours 30 minutes.
She was initially used for the public transport of passengers between Glasgow and Helensburgh, but was transferred to the Firth of Forth after 1816. In 1819 Bell used the vessel to establish stem communication between Glasgow and the West Highlands. Whilst running from Fort William, she ran ashore at Craignish Point on 15 December 1820, and was totally wrecked.
The vessel was propelled by an engine placed on the port side and supplied with steam from a boiler set to starboard. Two sets of radial paddles were initially fitted, set on detached arms on each side of the vessel and driven though spur gearing. This arrangement gave trouble, however, and paddlewheels (one on each side of the hull) were substituted. The single funnel also served as a mast, carrying a yard and a square sail. Her principal dimensions are recorded as:
Burden: 28 tons
Length over all: 51ft (15.55m)
Length on deck: 43.5ft (13.26m)
Beam on waterline: 11ft (3.35m)
Breadth of hull: 11.25ft (3.429m)
Breadth over paddle-boxes [overall beam]: 15ft (4.57m)
Depth of hold: 5.6ft (1.71m)
Mean draught: 4ft (1.22m).
The engine is currently displayed in the Museum's 'Making the Modern World Work' gallery, and is not in working order. It is of 4 (nominal) horsepower, was built by Mr John Robertson of Glasgow in 1812. The single upright cylinder is of 12.5ins (317.5mm) diameter by 16ins (406.4mm) stroke, placed over the crankshaft and driving a pair of half side-leves through two side rods; a connecting-rod takes the power to the overhanging crank. The crankshaft carries a balanced flywheel of 6ft (1.829m) diameter and a spur pinion. There is also a single loose eccentric which is driven by a pin projecting from the flywheel boss and is provided with two side holes corresponding with the appropriate positions for running ahead and astern. The slide valve is worked from a balanced rocking shaft, and an extension of the eccentric rod forms the means by which the eccentric is traversed for reversing. The condenser is embodied in a single casting, forming the main portion of the engine framing and the water tank, within which is accommodated the vertical air-pump (driven from the side-levers). Steam was supplied by a low-pressure boiler, which was made by David Napier and set in brickwork. When first tried, the engine had a smaller cylinder of 11.5 ins (292mm) which was replaced by that presently displayed after some weeks.
Information from Mr G P Fitzgerald (Collection Assistant, Water Transport, The Science Museum), 24 June 2002 and RCAHMS (RJCM), 8 July 2002.
H P Spratt 1953; NMRS, MS/829/46.
