Seine River Steamers early vessels meant that positive traction by pulling on a chain against a deadman or anchor was much more effective. In the 1830s river travel was considered dangerous, so much so that insurers would put a 25 percent premium on cargoes and vessels travelling the route. The Seine is divided into three sections, the lower or Oise section, middle or Paris Section, and upper or Marne section. Ships enter the river at Le Havre through a bad tidal bore. (Victor Hugo's favourite daughter was killed while travelling in a small boat across the bore.) Oceangoing ships can travel to Rouen,
Seine River Steamers Seine River Steamers The Seine River was the scene of many early experiments with steam navigation. The steamship has a long ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine. Robert Fulton even exhibited one to Napoleon's regime. With the success of the steam engine by the 1820s, the Second Republic embarked on a series of navigation improvements to raise weirs and locks with which to deepen the navigation channel. By the 1860s improvements had changed the riverbed from low-lying sand banks and trickle to a series