The PS (paddle steamer ) Comet was built in 1812 for Henry Bell, hotel and baths owner in Helensburgh, and began a passenger service on 15 August 1812 on the River Clyde between Glasgow and Greenock, the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. History Henry Bell had become interested in steam-propelled boats, and corresponded with Robert Fulton to learn from the Charlotte Dundas venture. In the winter of 1811/1812 he got John and Charles Wood of John Wood and Company, shipbuilders of Port Glasgow, to build a paddle steamer which was named Comet, named after the "Great Comet" of 1811. The 28 ton burthen craft had a deck long with a beam of . It had two paddle wheels on each side, driven by a single-cylinder engine rated at . The engine was made by John Robertson of Glasgow, and the boiler by David Napier, Camlachie, Glasgow (a story has it that they were evolved from an experimental little steam engine which Bell installed to pump sea water into the Helensburgh Baths). The funnel was tall and thin, serving as a mast, with a yard, allowing it to support a square sail when there was a following wind. A small cabin aft had wooden seats in front of concealed beds and a table. Comet was reported as "brightly painted, having for her figurehead a lady garbed in all the colours of the rainbow". Comet was launched on 24 July 1812 with her trial run on 6 August from Port Glasgow to the Broomielaw in Glasgow, taking three and a half hours for the . The double paddlewheels were found to unsatisfactory and a pair of single wheels were substituted which increased her speed to almost 7 knots. On 15 August 1812, Bell advertised in a local newspaper "The Greenock Advertiser", that the Comet would begin a regular passenger service from that day, a distance of each way: On 15 August Comet made the first commercial sailing from Glasgow for Bowling, Helensburgh and Greenock, opening the era of the steamboat on the Clyde, and more widely in Britain and Europe. The fare was "four shillings for the best cabin, and three shillings for the second." As the vessel clearly had no cabins in the modern sense it is unclear what this meant. The success of this service quickly inspired competition, with services down the Firth of Clyde and the sea