Funny Holidays - Steamship Birthday

The ship's birthday is a conventional date. However, the holiday is loved all over the world. Including in the post-Soviet space, where among fans of ships and locomotives there have always been many boys and girls of all ages. If the first part of the question is quite simple - on February 11, 1809, the American Fulton patented a ship with a steam engine, then the answer to the second is far from so clear. The steamer definitely has more than one birthday. For starters, a quarter century before Fulton, French inventor and priest Claude Geoffroy d'Abban also demonstrated the steamboat to the world. And, although the ship sailed only 365 meters along the Seine, these can also be considered “first steps.” After all, the Wright brothers' plane didn't make a transatlantic flight either. The failure disappointed the French abbot, and he did not continue the experiments. But others continued. And the first working ship, the Charlotte Dundes, appeared already in 1801. That is, February 11, therefore, is not a birthday, but rather a belated issuance of a new birth certificate. There is evidence that they knew what steam engines were and how they worked back in antiquity. They were described by Heron of Alexandria. However, it’s hard to believe in the existence of steamships at that time. More precisely, I don’t believe it at all. Wooden ships, insufficiently efficient fuel, the inability to make a reliable boiler - these are only some of the obvious obstacles. The holiday was loved by children from all over the world. Perhaps the study of steam mechanisms is my favorite physical experiment. In the United States, this day is sometimes celebrated with model steamship races made by students. Recently, this way of spending leisure time has become popular outside the United States. Even a sixth grader can make the most primitive steam engines with his own hands. And boys love to make boats. Also on this day, museum ships are visited, of which there are quite a lot all over the world. But there are very few working steamships left, unlike working steam locomotives. However, in Russia you can take an excursion on the paddle steamer N.V. Gogol, which still makes voyages along the Northern Dvina. "Old Man", which is already more than 110 years old, is the pride of Pomorye (this is the official title), the property of Russia. Such routes attract attention not only on the ship’s birthday, but on all other days of the year.