1842 - Maiden voyage of Hindostan to Suez to open the line to Calcutta

The Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation company (P&O), which has been awarded the service of mail to India, has been delivered the steam packet ship Hindostan for linking Suez with Calcultta, where lies the seat both of the Governor-General and of the East India Company's government.

¤ The P&O operates the line Southampton-Gibraltar-Malta-Alexandria, firs segment of the route to India, through steamers as Royal Tar, Braganza and Royal Liverpool.

She is not the first steamer to sail the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The steamship Hugh Lindsay, built at Bombay, was the first in 1830 to rally Suez from Bombay in 21½ days, and back in 19½ days, but in epic conditions since there was no coal reserve yet on her route then. She was overloaded with coal filling her cargo hold and, in addition, she had to be preceded by a sailing collier which set coal reserves at Aden, Jeddah and Suez to make the travel possible.

Hindostan was built by Thomas Wilson & Co at Liverpool. Her paddle-wheel machinery was made by Fawcett, Preston & Co of Liverpool. Her hull is made of wood. She is 217½-foot long, 35¾-foot broad and 30-foot deep for a tonnage metered at 2,020 tons. She is shorter than Great Western or than President, lost last year, and much shorter than Great Britain which is under construction. She is for a time the largest packet ship in the world. Her machinery consists of two cylinders delivering 520hp for a nominal speed of ten knots. She has also a barquentine rigging.

¤ Bentinck, a sistership, is scheduled for launch next year. She will rally the Suez-Calcutta line.

The line goes from Suez to Aden, Colombo, Madras and Calcutta - an overall voyage of 5,100 nautical miles in four segments of 1,300, 2,400, 650 and 750 miles, which takes three weeks. Using sailing packet ships makes the travel last six or seven weeks on average, possibly nine or ten. Actually, there was no regular line from Suez to Calcutta but to Bombay, where mail packets and passengers were transferred to coastal vessels to go to other Indian harbours, including Madras and Calcutta.

____________

IN RETROSPECT FROM TODAY

Note - on Hindostan's fate

She will carry on linking Suez with Calcutta until 1860. The line carries on until the 1870s. Then the railway replaces the packet ship between Bombay and Calcutta and, of course, Bombay will become the terminus of the lines to India. In 1869, the Suez canal is completed which also highly contributes to simplify the long journey from England to India, which, so far, has had an overland component between Alexandria and Suez.