After the experimental voyages described above it was not long before owners of steam vessels and enterprising shippers generally recognised the benefits to be derived from the establishment of regular coastal steamship services. The year 1816 saw steam communication established between Great Britain and Ireland with the _Hibernia_ of 112 tons register, which enjoyed the distinction of being the first boat employed in cross-channel service in the British Islands. She was built for the Holyhead and Howth service, was lugger-rigged, nearly 80 feet in length, and about 9 feet draught, and her passages averaged about seven hours. David Napier now introduced a great change in the shape of the fore part of steamers’ hulls, which added to the superiority of their speed over sailing ships. Hitherto steamers had been built with the bluff bows which characterised the sailers. Napier observed that the obstruction caused to a ship’s progress by bows of this shape was very great, especially in dirty weather. He was crossing from Glasgow to Belfast on one of the sailing packets which then did the journey in anything up to a week, and perched himself on the bows, where he remained, heedless of the waves and spray which continually dashed over him. He was engaged in watching the bows and the waves, and thinking. Occasionally he turned to the captain and asked if the sea was rough. The captain said it could not yet be called very rough. The weather grew worse, and at last a tremendous wave, breaking over the vessel, swept her from stem to stern. Napier went back to the captain and asked, “Do you call it rough now?” The captain replied that he could not remember a worse night in his experience. To his astonishment Napier was delighted with this answer, and went down to his cabin remarking, “I think I can manage if that is all.”[42] [42] An account of this voyage by Napier is given in the American Admiral Preble’s “History of Steam Navigation.” Subsequently he made a series of tank experiments with models, and these resulted in the adoption of the fine wedge-shaped bows which distinguished the steamships he afterwards built. This was the origin of the first great departure from sailing-ship models in steamboat construction. In 1820 regular communication between Dover and Calais was established by the _Rob Roy_, a Scotch-built boat. In the previous year the _Talbot_ had been built by Wood for the Holyhead and Dublin service. She was 92 feet long by 18 feet beam with a tonnage of 150. For this boat D. Napier provided the engines, while the first steamer engined by Robert Napier was the _Leven_, built in 1823. The _Leven’s_ engine, of the side-lever type, is still preserved on Dumbarton pier.