RMS Sirius became the first ship to hold the Blue Riband for an eastbound Atlantic crossing.
Sirius was an early British steamship operated by the British and American Steam Navigation Company. In April 1838 it crossed from New York to Queenstown, now Cobh, in 18 days and 14 hours, establishing an early record for a steam-powered Atlantic passage.
The term Blue Riband was later used for the unofficial record for the fastest scheduled passenger crossing of the North Atlantic. Sirius’s achievement predates the famous liners that made the award widely known, including Mauretania, Normandie and United States.
Sirius was a small and relatively lightly built vessel by later ocean-liner standards. Its historic crossing demonstrated that steam could compete with sail on the North Atlantic, even though the ship never became a long-term transatlantic success.