PS (paddle steamer) Comet was built in 1812 for Henry Bell, a Scottish engineer who with his wife had become proprietor of the Baths Hotel offering sea bathing in Helensburgh. On 15 August 1812, Bell's ship began a passenger service on the River Clyde, connecting Helensburgh to Greenock and Glasgow. This was the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. Bell obtained the engine from John Robertson of Glasgow, and the ship was built for him by John and Charles Wood of Port Glasgow.
History
Henry Bell had become interested in steam-propelled boats, and to learn from the Charlotte Dundas venture corresponded with Robert Fulton, who got the North River Steamboat (also known as the Clermont) into operation in 1807 as the first commercially successful steamboat. It had two paddle wheels on each side, driven by a single-cylinder engine rated at . (a story has it that they were evolved from an experimental little steam engine which Bell installed to pump sea water into the Helensburgh Baths). The funnel was tall and thin, serving as a mast, with a yard, allowing it to support a square sail when there was a following wind. The double paddlewheels were found to be unsatisfactory and a pair of single wheels were substituted which increased her speed to almost 7 knots.
On 15 August Comet made the first commercial sailing from Glasgow for Bowling, Helensburgh and Greenock, opening the era of the steamboat on the Clyde, and more widely in Britain and Europe. There were no deaths. and is now in The Science Museum in London.
Comet II
Bell built another vessel, Comet II, but on 21 October 1825 she collided with the steamer Ayr off Kempock Point, Gourock, Scotland. After the loss of his second ship, Bell abandoned his work on steam navigation.
In 2011, just before the original's 200th anniversary, the replica was restored by a partnership of Inverclyde Council, Ferguson Shipbuilders and an organisation called The Trust.
In April 2023, the replica ship was dismantled and the woodwork scrapped by Inverclyde Council. No trace of the replica ship remains at the site.