Steering engine

[1] The first steering engine with feedback was installed on Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Eastern in 1866.

The size of Great Eastern, by far the largest ship of her day, made power steering a necessity.

The Mississippi River style steamboat Belle of Louisville, (originally Idlewild and oldest in her class), is fitted with a steering engine.

Belle of Louisville, by Alan L. Bates, the marine architect who supervised the restoration of the boat, who comments that when in use, the steering engine causes the pilot wheel to whirl "as fast as an electric fan."

The same source also describes the functional need for steering hard-to in vessels of its type, whose combination of shallow draft and high above-water profile require rapid changes in rudder under shifting wind conditions, a need which is addressed by the steering engine.