does anyone know, why the colour of most of the steamer´s funnels was yellow? Was it "in" or was there a technical reason?
If you look at the liveries of virtually all navies during the second half of the 19th century, there was indeed some kind of universal colour scheme (which also applied to merchant navies): Black hull, white cabins and buff or yellow masts and funnels (ships for tropical regions had white hulls for temperature reasons).
Only around the turn of the century, most navies started to use gray for visibility reasons.
I assume that this colour scheme was inherited from the sailing vessels, when the first steamers came up. And the usual paint for sailers was:
Black (coal tar) hull against decay, white (white lead) cabins to protect the wood and to keep them cool inside, and wooden spars and masts. Don't forget the coppered or minium (red lead) painted underwater hull. All these paints had mainly practical reasons.
I can only guess (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the buff or yellow paint of the funnels and masts stands in the tradition of the wooden spars of the sailing vessels.
And people simply got used to it, as yellow funnels (especially on a white ship) simply look elegant. No question that black funnels are more practical. That's why most yellow funnels had black caps...
Grüße aus Gräfelfing, Moritz
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