Steamships in South America?

[Hankwilliams]

Hello dear frieds and neighbors,

I'm very interestet about steam driven vessels in Africa and far East. But most of all surviving steam or dieselisiest Ships in this parts of the world are known, for example in Burma and Bangladesh, also on the Nile - may be, that on Congo river or on Zambezi are some unknown steamvessels in existence.

It is well known, that in former times on the great South Americam  rivers and lakes many paddlesteamer and screwsteamer were found. On Amazon river some big paddlers and screwboats of american stile of constuction were used, also wood fired sternwheelers at least to the 1970s.
Is anything known about the situation today? I was informed by internet, a boat of "Zulu" type has been found there as late as 1985.
Is anything known for example about the former steamboats on Rio del la Plata and other rivers, or on Lake Titicaca??

I even would like to get a copy of Allistair D.'s book about the steamboats of the world. If anyone can tell me a link to a source, where I can buy this book, I'm be a very glad man (may be the gladest of the world!).

Regards

Thomas

P.S. In category contruction next week I will introduce my model of a Congo sternwheeler, it's steam driven.

[Hankwilliams]

Hi,

Very less interest about this item 'til now. Why?
Perhaps because there is not much known about the steamboat history and present situation in South America?

I dont know.

But I hope, anyone is able to tell me a supply source of Allistair's book about the steamboats of the world...


Regards

Thomas

[claudiu_ne2000]

hi Thomas...

It`s very quiet at this forum...and i thing people here is specialize on Australian and English paddle steamers ...

[Eddy Matthews]

You could always try contacting Alistair Deayton directly Thomas - He only comes on the forum once in a while.

His handle on here is AlistairD - You will find him if you do a search on the members list, then send him a PM or an email.

[Eddy Matthews]

hi Thomas...

It`s very quiet at this forum...and i thing people here is specialize on Australian and English paddle steamers ...

The answer to that one is simple Claudiu - If your in a country other than the UK or Australia, TALK about your paddlers! You cannot expect us to know about paddlers in every corner of the world, so tell us about them, and inspire us to join in and take an interest!

[Harold H. Duncan]

Whilst I must agree with you Claudiu, Eddy is right. I love the English and Scottish paddle steamers, and the very different Murray River craft of Australia. But have chosen to research and model the very varied paddle steamers of my own country, New Zealand. A lot of the iron paddlers where built in the UK and assembled here, but we also had a flourishing home grown wooden boat building industry which produced some very interesting boats, using locally build steam plant. The Harbour ferries and tugs of Auckland and other ports, through the paddlers on the various rivers to the lake steamers, nearly all gone now, but hopefully a few will live again in miniature. I also have a personal interest in the Mekong River area of Asia, and hope one day to research and model some of the paddle steamers past and present from this area.
Its up to individuals from all areas of the world to promote their own paddlers, and hence generate an interest in model paddlers from other areas to model these often very unique craft.

kiwi

[Roderick Smith]

Since this is a paddleboat forum, I haven't put up steamships as such.
I have written up bits on the Titicaca fleet (not paddle), but for a different forum.
I have put up my photos of the Posadas - Encarnacion ferries, and others have added to that thread.
There has been a thread tracking a genuine paddlesteamer.  A boat of the same name survives today in preservation, but isn't paddle.
Nobody has mentioned anything about Amazon paddlesteamer.  I have the impression that the majority of vessels were screw.
There are commercial cruises on the Parana, but not with paddleboats.

Here is one on the Peruvian Amazon:
www.galapagos-amazoncruises.com/PeruvianAmazon.htm

'Directory of the world's steamships' is published by Tempus
The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 2QG UK
www.tempus-publishing.com

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Hankwilliams]

Hi

Thank you very much for your informations, Roderick.

The opinion, everyone should first resarch and collect informations about paddlers in his own country, I can' agree much.
As I write in the beginning, informations about nearly all existing paddle vessels in Europe, Australia, USA, New Zeeland are availiable.
But resarch also means to examine regions of the world, which are less known in relation to our objects, the steamboats.

Here in Germany, even like in Switzerland are a relative great number of interesting and elegant paddlesteamers can be found, but this is - in my opinion - no reason of resaching far remote parts of the world.

We are a circle of steamboat fans from nearly all parts of the world and I think the expectation that anyone of us has recend  informations  about  paddle steamers even in South America is  entitlet and not too far away to discuss in this forum.


Regards

Thomas

[Eddy Matthews]

Thomas, you misunderstood me......

I never said we shouldn't research vessels from other countries, all I said was that members from other countries should tell us about the paddlers in their own country, that way we build up an even wider base of knowledge that everyone can share and benefit from.

For example, you may know all about the German paddlers, but doesn't mean people in America or Australia do, so please tell us about them..... If everyone did that Paddleducks would become even more useful as a resource, and in time we would get members who posted on the area you wish to research.

The Australians and New Zealanders have to be congratulated - A lot of those members have posted messages about their paddlers, and because of that we now have a huge amount of data on them which is available to everyone, and I have to admit that I've learnt a great deal about vessels I knew nothing about previously.

To say that Paddleducks is heavily biased towards UK and Aussie/NZ paddlers is indeed true (at the moment), but then you have to ask WHY?  I think my comments above answer that one.....

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's....Thomas.....do not be dis-illusioned......in OZ we have a member.....Roderick B Smith....who has researched & reported on steam paddle vessels not only from Australia.....but from the Sub Continent.....with photographs......& we all learn more with each posting

If you have the time to research vessels from the Latin Americas & post the findings ....all PD members will appreciate reading your postings - regards 

[Walter Snowdon]

HiThomas. I agree, there is very little available information on south American paddlers and by the same taken there is enormous gaps in our knowledge of Finland (over 200 paddlerslisted apparently), France, China, Poland  etc the list of missing knowledge is endless. I have a little information on paddle warships in the small wars in South America but look forward to anything our members can add.
DENNYS LISTS, a four volume list of the ships built in their yards contains a lot of information on paddlers built for the Americas and most of the plans are available from the National Maritime Museum.
 Any web site is only as good as the volume of information provided by its members and someone out there must have the knowledge, so come on,lets get working!. regards, walter.

[Roderick Smith]

There are several accessible existing resources.  As a good start, try using the search facility in the Paddleducks forum.
I just did a quick search on
Argentina
Posadas
Parana
Paraguay
Uruguay
These give a lot of overlapping items, and don't cover everything which I know I have read within Paddleducks.
Try also reading through the whole 'Preserved' and 'Research' threads.

On the general web front (use Google), Lake Titicaca is particularly well documented.  This is because of British involvement in the boats, and possibly the operating companies.  The preservation efforts there are very much British supported.

One reason for which I have had the material which I post is that I travel to these places, and discover as I go (and boats are only a secondary interest to my main railway one).  There is a modest maritime museum in Buenos Aires (preserved ships in the gentrified Darsena), but I don't recall anything about paddlesteamers there.

My main South American contacts are railway enthusiasts, not marine ones.  My Spanish is not sufficiently good to float open-ended discussions in Spanish-langauge forums, and would be hopeless for anything Brazilian in Portuguese.  I have yet to voyage on the Amazon, and won't have the chance for at least 2 years, but will certainly report back anything which I discover when I do.  Brazil, Argentina and Chile are sufficiently wealthy countries, with sufficient middle and upper class numbers with sufficient time/income/passion that there must be marine research (even if not active preservation).  Just find a way of tapping into it.

I have all of my Titicaca coverage scanned, done when I sent them to Alistair.  I'll put up one of each over the weekend if time allows.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Bierjunge]

I agree, there is very little available information on south American paddlers and by the same taken there is enormous gaps in our knowledge of Finland (over 200 paddlerslisted apparently), France, China, Poland  etc the list of missing knowledge is endless.

Just a few remarks in loose order:

- In the Deutsches Museum, Munich, there is (or at least used to be) a wunderful model of a South American Sternwheeler (from the Orinoco, as far as I remeber) in the maritime collection.
It was one of my absolute favorites I admired countless times, when I still lived at Munich and visited the museum regularly. I understand that the museum's transportation collection has been remodelled since, so I don't know if it's still on display. Unfortunately, I never took a foto of it.
I loved it because it is so different from that stereotyped gingerbread-adorned Mississippi paddlers:
Very unostentatious, lamellae shutters on the cabin windows, corrugated tin roof, and a beautiful two-tone pastel green livery.

- In the reprint catalogue (see http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=2611.msg10442#msg10442 ) of the Marine Iron Works, Chicago, there is a picture and a few drawings of the Mexican sternwheeler La Golondrina of the Mexican-Gulf Agricultural Company. But this one is more standard Southern style, with double stacks in front of the pilot house.

- Interesting that you mention Scandinavia. As shown in http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=3352.0, there used to be Zulu-type paddlers at least in Sweden. Very little seems to be known about that.

Regards, Moritz

[Hankwilliams]

Hi Moritz,

Thank you for your essential marks.

I also know the sternwheeler in the German Museum in Munich. It is very similar with the Krick kit of the "Mark Twain",
it seems the boat in the museum was the model for Kricks model.

I also made a reply of your topic of the swedish "Zulu" typed sternwheeler. It would be a nice, to build a functional model of it.


Regards

Thomas

[Hankwilliams]

Dear friends and neighbors,


It seems, we got a intersting discussion now!

Doubtless informations, pictures and data of European continental paddlesteamers are under representatet in the forum.
Doubtless too, the reason are the lesser activity, respectively the lesser number of members in continetal Europe.

I think, more informations and pictures about the technical high developed continental steamers will on interest for all members and will even enrich the forum.

I will note this for the future.

Roderick, thank you very much about your numerous informations, which are very important to me.
I will als order the book of Allistair now.
Now I will close for today, tomorrow I will have my 55th birthday.

Thanks you all

Thomas