Thanks you both for this piece of information, either her and upon the other half of this construction's BP comments, that serve to broaden horizons. ^^
And since the sails that your vessel is using are somewhat similar to the triangular portuguese ones, here [en.wikipedia.org] are my 2 pennies contribution towards this debate. These started being used at Portuguese caravel [en.wikipedia.org] vessels which were used during the ages of (nautic) discoveries around the 15th century. ;D

Tbh, it's only in recent years that I've been hearing the term "SteamPunk" more oftenly because I don't recall having heard it before.

It's nice to learn more about the development history :) It really turned out very beautifully, and definitely gives off the EXOTIC vibe you wanted to accomplish! I already know a bit about Chinese Steampunk as an art style, but it is really great to think up steampunk styles for many other nations too, based on their old traditional designs :)

Yep, the steamboat-like "paddle wheels" were the parts that made me immediately think of "steampunk". Especially together with the name of an adventurous explorer in the description who also has an academic title - a detail that is often used in steampunk stories too ;) However, if we look closer, we can see that the "paddle wheels" in fact have no paddles on them! That's really funny :D And in reality, paddle wheels for ships were not even only a thing of the industrial revolution in the USA, instead the old Romans had thought of them first (as long as we know) :D

Most sailboats use the same sails these days, but early sailboats were very characteristic of their country. Moana (movie) did an excellent job recreating the traditional Polynesian sail. Early Swiss sails were very interesting, too. But I wanted EXOTIC. I mixed early Arabian sails with Malaysian sails & was pretty happy, but they didn't look on paper how I wanted them to. I wanted something spreading out like a bird's wings. So I took the sails I had... and spread them out like a bird's wings. But instead of toward the sky, I spread them out toward the water. There might be a technical term for that, but it's far less important than the result.

I never played WC2, but I know it's made by an American company. With the pravalence of steamboats in our history, there is no doubt some of their ships had the same inspiration mine had.

As for the sails & the "air oars", they indeed had Oriental inspiration. In a truly steampunk world, there would be a whole world of cultures adapting the steampunk theme, and focusing on only a small part of that (Victorian England/America) is missing out on a whole world of culture. Da Vinci had some very steampunk drafts in his notes. What would Italian steampunk have been like?

The majority of the boat is a very American design--the smoke stacks are textbook steamboat smoke stacks from the Mississippi river--but the sails are very, very Oriental. Dr. Sheepstone is a world explorer & I wanted his exotic tastes to show in his vessel.

The back part of the vessel with that huge rotating wheel to paddle the waters, reminds me of the steamboats's back [upload.wikimedia.org]. Hence my comment in here about it, while the vessel as a whole reminds me more of what I said upon the other half BP of this construction. ^^

Tbh, the vessel as a whole has reminder of Elvish airships from an old anime which I can't recall, but even your image probably has got some hidden inspiration from some Orc vessels in WC2 [wow.gamepedia.com]. ;D

My first spontaneous thought was "Chinese Steampunk" :D A bit like that one: https://shoomlah.deviantart.com/art/Shenkuu-Airship-Concepts-41255684

Yeah Eve' , it sort of reminds me of those old US steam driven river vessels from a couple of centuries back (that were also used in many classic western movies). ^^

Yep, the backside is beautiful too :)