How many big steam ships are still sailing?

[Snnipe_70E]

@Floater

Just a wee nitpick. She has steam turbines giving power to generators producing the electricity that powers the electrical motors that make her move. In my book to be called a steam ship it should have a steam engine.

A steam turbine is a steam engine.

[Machine_Elf]

@dogman69

Just to update and revive the “steam ships in service” posts, the 410-foot S.S. Badger is a coal-fired steamship built in 1952 that’s homeported in Ludington, Michigan, and still operates as a car ferry across Lake Michigan. It’s said to be the largest coal-fired passenger steamship still operating in the U.S. in 2015.

This should satisfy the nitpickers in this thread, in that the S.S. Badger is powered by an honest-to-god Skinner Unaflow reciprocating-piston steam engine.

[Bimmer]

I think the SS Universe is still floating around Hong Kong somewhere.
It used to be an ‘Alaskan cruise ship’ and was also leased out to, I believe, the U of Pittsburg to take students on world cruises. Now I think it’s a passenger ferry.

[Isilder]

@Bimmer

I think the SS Universe is still floating around Hong Kong somewhere.

NO. It went to scrappers in 96.

[Isilder]

@minor7flat5

As has been mentioned, there are many steam-driven vessels in the Navy.

Well there are 8 Wasp class ships that use boilers to drive turbines.
Other than them,what is there ? The 2 hospital ships… and 3 Gopher State Cranes.

Any more ? 13.

[Xema]

@Isilder

Any more ?

As noted above, numerous nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

[minor7flat5]

Indeed…

I was a nuclear Machinist’s Mate on the Nimitz–a job that would be pointless without a steam plant (MM’s are steam plant workers).