A lithograph of the steam yacht 'Ross Winans' (1866), after the painting by Thomas Goldsworth Dutton. The ship was built at Hogarth's works at Cubitt Town, on the Isle of Dogs. She was a prototype iron-clad vessel. The nickname 'cigar ship' derived from her unusual shape. In the picture, people are cheering on the quayside and on a small sailing ship.
Ross Winans (1796–1877) was an American inventor, steam pioneer and railroad engineer. He developed a series of experimental cigar-shaped vessels in the 1850s and 1860s. The idea was to design a streamlined ship with minimal superstructure that would cut through the water with greater efficiency than conventional vessels. Despite his investment in the project, none of Winans ships undertook proper sea trails and the concept became a technological cul-de-sac, one of many in the nineteenth century.