USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 4 > Part 41
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"When we reflect that this match was sailed over a course of some 15,000 miles, and that the difference of time was only twenty-four hours, one is impressed with the perfection to which the models of the vessels had been brought, as well as the exactness of the data relating to the winds and currents that had been gathered and reduced to a system by Maury, and with the skill of their captains, who were guided by his charts and sailing directions. The average difference of sailing be- tween these two ships was less than six seconds per mile over the entire distance. Few races over thirty-mile courses have been sailed by yachts more evenly matched."
The return voyage from San Francisco to Boston or New York, although shorter than the outward passage by reason of the prevailing westerlies, was not so difficult or highly re- garded as a test of speed. Nevertheless, there was one famous race home which established the record for that course. The Boston entry was the Northern Light, designed by Pook and built in 1851 at South Boston by Briggs Brothers, grandsons of the North River builder of the old Columbia. She was the best of the "Lights," a class of medium clippers built by this firm, all rather chunky in appearance compared with their rivals, but with carefully designed underwater lines which gave
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them some excellent records for speed. The Northern Light was commanded by Freeman Hatch, who induced many fellow Cape-Codders to ship under him, and maintained perfect discipline without the usual diet of "belaying-pin soup" and "handspike hash." Her New York competitors were the Contest and the Trade Wind. These two left San Francisco on March 12, 1853, and the Northern Light the day after. The Boston papers reported that off Cape Horn she passed the Contest, whose master shouted through his speaking trumpet. Captain Hatch replied, "I can't hold my horse!" The New York papers, however, insisted that the Contest was ahead until she ran out of the wind off Cape Hatteras; when the Northern Light, having given that cape a wider berth, carried the wind into Boston, 76 days and some hours out (May 27, 1853). The Trade Wind took 84 days. The next year an- other New Yorker, the Comet, almost duplicated the Northern Light's time, but to New York instead of Boston.
Seventy-six days from California to an Atlantic port was by no means so remarkable a feat as 89 days in the other di- rection; but Captain Hatch was justly proud of what the Northern Light had done, and caused the record of her voy- age to be engraved on his tombstone at Eastham as "an achievement won by no mortal before or since." Peace to the ashes of kindly Captain Hatch! There is no danger of his record ever being broken.
VINTAGE OF 1852
Now let us return to the year 1852, when 33 new clipper ships were launched for the California trade alone. Of these, Massachusetts built more than her share, and the greatest of all. The Medford builders-who considering the small num- ber of clipper ships they constructed, have the largest propor- tion of successful ones-were responsible for the Climax, Dauntless, Golden Eagle, Phantom, and Whirlwind.
The Dauntless, built by Benjamin F. Delano, was a small clipper under 800 tons, but the most expensive ship of her size owned in Boston, with a length 5.6 times her beam, bold sheer, and for figurehead a nymph with outstretched wings, in flowing white garments with a golden girdle, crowned with a
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THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
chaplet of flowers. All the principal New England yards of that period had expert woodcarvers, mostly men who had been employed on the highly decorated vessels of the earlier genera- tion; and some of their figureheads were very artistic produc- tions. They were demountable, so that they could be taken from the bows and stowed while at sea; otherwise the first storm would have ripped them off. The Golden Eagle, built by Hayden & Cudworth, was destroyed by the Alabama after a notable career, in 1863. The Phantom, built by Samuel Lapham, was owned by the Bacons of Boston. After some excellent voyages to California, the West Coast, and China, she was placed under the command of Henry Jackson Sargent, Jr., a member of the distinguished Gloucester family, who began his seaman's career as foremast hand on the Flying Fish. After several voyages under his command, she ran on the Pratas Shoal in the China Sea in thick weather, and had to be abandoned. Captain Sargent himself was lost at sea on his next voyage.
Samuel H. Pook's best clipper of 1852 was the Winged Racer, built by Jackson at East Boston and owned by Sampson & Tappan of Boston, who also owned the Westward Ho!, one of Donald McKay's beautiful creations of the same year. Both clippers, after three years in the California trade, were put to carrying coolies from China to the Guano Islands. The quasi slave trade occasioning some scandal, the Boston firm aban- doned it. The Westward Ho! continued the same business for Peruvian owners; the Winged Racer returned to the Cali- fornia and China trade, in which she was captured and burned by the Alabama in 1863. Captain Semmes described her in his memoirs as a "perfect beauty; one of those ships of superb model, with taunt, graceful masts and square yards, known as clippers."
THE SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS
"With all my care," wrote Donald McKay in 1864, "I never yet built a vessel that came up to my own ideal; I saw some- thing in each ship which I desired to improve." That sen- tence stamps Mckay as an artist, if there were nothing else to
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give him that quality. The public were satisfied with the Flying Cloud; to them, she was perfection. To her creator, she fell short of it; and in 1852 he built the Sovereign of the Seas to beat the Flying Cloud. She was 258 feet long and 2451 tons measurement ; again, the largest ship in the world, and the boldest and sharpest in design. The golden ball on her main skysail pole was 210 feet above the deck-just 11 feet less than the height of Bunker Hill Monument from its base! She swung a main yard 90 feet long; hoisted 12,000 yards of canvas, not counting studdingsails; and her main topsail had a spread of 70 feet and a hoist of 50. Her draught when loaded, 21 feet, will serve to remind us that these great clipper ships were not racing machines or skimming dishes but cargo carriers, depending for the stability that counteracted the tremendous pull of their immense sail area, not upon fin keels or outside ballast, but upon the design of their hulls and the weight of cargo that they carried : thus over three quarters of their bulk was under water, and was driven through it at steamship speed by sails alone.
No Boston merchant would risk capital in 1852 in a ship the size of the Sovereign. So Donald McKay built her on his own account, embarking his all in the venture; placed his brother Lauchlan McKay, an experienced master and builder, in command; and had her towed to New York to load for San Francisco.
The maiden voyage of the Sovereign of the Seas was one of the most memorable in the history of sailing ships. Leaving New York in the unfavorable month of August, she encoun- tered heavy head winds from the Falklands to Cape Horn. It was a terrific strain on her spars and sails : the top masts, we are told, bent like whips in the fearful snow squalls; but she beat through the Straits of Le Maire without missing stays once. Around the Horn, she ran into more boisterous weather of the Antarctic winter, whereupon, owing to the settling of the trestletrees, the greater part of her masts and yards went over the side. A landsman would have said that she was a wreck; but Captain McKay gave strict orders that every- thing should be saved and nothing cut. He got the tangle of
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gear on board; had her under jury rig doing 12 knots the sec- ond day after; and in 12 days time, through constant work by her crew of 105, she was almost as well rigged as when she left Boston. In spite of this mishap, she reached San Fran- cisco in 103 days. There, as usual, the crew deserted; and with only about thirty men, Captain McKay began his home- ward passage, touching at Honululu to load whale oil. Pos- sessing Maury's new sailing directions and wishing to test them out, Captain McKay passed through the loneliest part of the South Pacific, and was rewarded by finding what Maury loved to call the "brave west winds" of the forties and fifties south. In 22 days she made 5,391 miles; and on March 18, 1853, during a heavy gale that whipped the crests of enor- mous seas to a white froth, the Sovereign made 411 miles.
It is a pity that the Sovereign of the Seas never made an- other California voyage. At the time of her return to New York, California freight had dropped; and her owners de- cided to send her to Liverpool. Donald McKay went as pas- senger, to observe her behavior. He had the satisfaction to see her pin up a new transatlantic sailing record : just under 14 days from New York dock to Mersey anchorage, and exactly 6 days from Cape Race, Newfoundland, to Cape Clear, Ireland. When he returned home, Donald McKay was asked by Enoch Train what he thought of the ship, and replied : "She appears to be a pretty good ship, but I think I can build one to beat her." So he did-but no one else ever did.
THE CLIPPERS OF 1853
The years 1853-1854 mark the zenith of the clipper ship era. More of the class were built in 1853 than in any other year ; and the largest of all were launched in 1853 and 1854. The following were built at Boston in 1853 : the Amphitrite, the Mystery, and the second Oriental by Hall; the Bonita, the Boston Light, the Cyclone, and the John Land by Briggs Brothers; Paul Curtis built the Reporter, which was tried in the New Orleans cotton trade, but did not pay with such low- class freight; R. E. Jackson built the Challenger; Jackson &
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Ewell, the Queen of Clippers; D. D. Kelly, the Edwin Forrest, with a figurehead representing the celebrated actor in the character of Spartacus; A. & G. T. Sampson, the Fearless; Donald McKay, the Empress of the Seas, the Romance of the Seas, and the Great Republic, of which more anon. At Med- ford were built the Don Quixote for the father of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, the Eagle Wing, the Kingfisher, and the Ringleader. Hood of Somerset built the Archer and the Sky- lark; and the Newburyport builders got into the game this year with the Whistler, the Guiding Star, and the famous Dreadnought.
The Dreadnought was one of the few Liverpool packets that was a genuine clipper; for that type was too sharp, wet on decks, and loftily sparred to be comfortable for passengers in the boisterous winter weather of the western ocean. She was not an extreme clipper, but beautifully designed and built with great care and strength for hard usage in the Red Cross Line of New York-Liverpool packets. Captain Samuel Samuels of New York, still in his twenties but with a reputa- tion as a driver of men and of ships, was given command of her. A packet-ship captain on the Liverpool run needed very special qualities. He had to be a tactful man to handle ig- norant and frightened immigrants, a gentleman to deal with first-class passengers, a driver of his vessel in every sort of weather, and above all a leader of men, to master the Liver- pool Irish sailors-stout fellows, who thought nothing of going aloft barefoot in wintry weather, but unruly and muti- nous to a degree that often left it an open question whether they or the captain would command the ship. Captain Sam- uels, by his high personal qualities and those of the Dread- nought, made such a name for himself and her that both acquired a fame almost legendary. In her first ten years as a liner she was never once hove to, and in over 70 Atlantic voyages she made several eastward passages in 14 days or under. The Dreadnought even had a special ballad com- posed in her honor. There is more than one tune, and several versions of the words; here is the one that I have heard :
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THE CLIPPER OF 1853
There's
sau-cy
wild
pack-et, flash pack-et
of
fame, She
hails from New York and the Dreadnought's her name, She's
go.
bound to the we-est-ward, where the stor-my winds blow; Bound
a-way in the Dread- to the west-ward we'll nought
"Now the Dreadnought she lies in the river Mersey, Awaiting the tugboat to take her to sea,
Out round the Rock Li-ight where the salt tides do flow, Bound away to the westward in the Dreadnought we'll go.
"Now the Dreadnought's a-howlin' down the wild Irish Sea, Her passengers me-erry with hearts full of glee; Her sailors like li-i-ons walk the deck to and fro; She's the Liverpool packet-O Lord let her go!
"Now the Dreadnought's a sailin' th' Atlantic so wide Where the high roarin' seas roll along her black side, With her sails tautly se-e-t for the Red Cross to show ; She's the Liverpool packet-my God see her go!
"Now the Dreadnought's a-crossin' the Banks o' Newfound- land
Where the water's so gree-een and the bottom's all sand.
Says the little fishes as they swim to and fro,
She's the Liverpool packet-my God she can go!
"Now the Dreadnought's a-roarin' down the Long Island shore,
Cap'n Samuels'll drive her as he's oft done before,
With ev'ry sail dror-or-in' aloft and alow;
She's the Liverpool packet-my God watch her go!
"Now the Dreadnought's arriv-ed in New York once more. Let's go ashore shipmates on the land we adore.
With wives and with swee-eet-hearts-so happy we'll be, And drink to the Dreadnought wherever we be.
"Here's a health to the Dreadnought and all her brave crew, To bold Captain Samuels-and officers too;
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Talk about your flash pa-ack-ets: Swallowtail and Black Ball,
The Dreadnought's the flier than can beat them all!"
THE DREADNOUGHT'S RECORDS
It is impossible to write about the Dreadnought without get- ting embroiled in the controversy about her "nine-day voyage." As the usual form of the story goes, she sailed from New York on February 27, 1859, and stopped at Queenstown to send her mails ashore, 9 days 17 hours from Sandy Hook. This story probably originated in a nautical calendar which was brought out in New York some time in the seventies, and which contained a number of records, some authentic and others quite preposterous. The late Captain Arthur H. Clark (so he told me) was present when someone quoted this "re- cord" to Captain Samuels, who remarked that he did not remember it but would look it up. No contemporary mention of it has ever been found. Captain Samuels did not allude to it in his own memoirs which appeared in 1887; and although the record was hotly debated off and on, it was not until 1905 that he openly admitted that he had made it; and not until 1908, fifty years after the alleged voyage, and when he was very old and decrepit, that Captain Samuels positively stated over his signature that the voyage had been made!
Captain Clark, in his Clipper Ship Era (1911) reproduced the log of the voyage in question as printed shortly after her arrival in several different Liverpool papers, which were doubtless furnished with the copy by the captain himself. The log makes no mention of stopping off Queenstown, and proves that 9 days, 21 hours, after discharging her New York pilot she was not within 400 miles of Queenstown. The voyage to Liverpool was, however, made in 13 days, 9 hours-one of the fastest on record.
After the death of Captain Samuels, his son gave the discus- sion a new turn by discovering a statement in the Illustrated London News for July 9, 1859, to the effect that the Dread- nought "arrived off Cape Clear on the 27th ult., in nine days from New York." This was triumphantly hailed as conclu- sive proof of the famous nine-day voyage-overlooking the
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THE GREAT REPUBLIC
slight discrepancy that the exploit was always supposed to have been performed in February and March, not in June; and to Queenstown, not Cape Clear. Further, on this July voyage, the Dreadnought passed Sandy Hook at 12:30 noon on the 16th; so that, if she reached Cape Clear on the 27th, she was between ten and a half and eleven and a half days, not nine days, out; and this second or rival "nine-day voyage" goes the same way as the first.
There is no doubt that the Dreadnought, as well as other packet ships, was capable of making the coast of Ireland in 9 days; but whether she did or not is a question of fact. As the transatlantic records of other sailing vessels are given from port to port, or Sandy Hook to Rock Light, a land-to-land record is not significant. What the Sovereign of the Seas did from Cape Race to Cape Clear has already been mentioned; and, for that matter, the Salem privateer ship Mount Vernon made the island of Corvo in the Azores in 8 days, 7 hours, from her home port, away back in 1799.
A famous transatlantic run of 13 days, 1 hour, 25 minutes, from New York to Liverpool, dock to dock, was made by the Red Jacket, in January, 1854. Although built by Thomas of Rockland, Maine, Massachusetts has a claim on the Red Jacket because she was designed by Samuel H. Pook, owned in Boston, and commanded by Captain Asa Eldrige. On this passage she broke the Sovereign of the Seas's record for a day's run, making 413 miles. At Liverpool she was char- tered by the White Star Line for the Australian trade, made a 69-day passage from Liverpool to Melbourne, and returned in 73, after a dangerous passage through Antarctic ice, which is the subject of one of the most beautiful contemporary litho- graphs of clipper ships. Although one of the largest of our clippers, she was one of the sauciest, and was generally con- sidered the most handsome vessel afloat.
THE GREAT REPUBLIC
In writing of the Great Republic one wants something better than superlatives. Donald McKay outdid himself once more. Only three years had elapsed since he had built the Stag Hound, 1534 tons and 209 feet long-at that time the largest
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American merchant ship. The Great Republic was 3341/2 feet long, and registered 4556 tons. Yet she was as sharp, shapely, and high-bred as the smallest of the clippers. Her beam, 531/2 feet, was less than one sixth her length. Her mainmast, 44 inches in diameter, was 131 feet high; adding the main top- mast, main topgallant mast, main royal mast and main sky- sail mast, we reach the amazing height of 276 feet above the deck. Her main yard was 120 feet long; her smallest skysail yard would have served for the topsail of any ship built twenty years before. In addition to the three square-rigged masts, she carried a fourth-a spanker mast with spanker, gaff topsail, and gaff topgallant sail. She was the first clipper to have a donkey engine to help hoist sail; and she surely did need it, hoisting 15,683 yards of canvas. Her main rigging was 121/2- inch Russia hemp, four-stranded.
The launching of the Great Republic at East Boston on October 4, 1853, was the greatest show of that sort that Bos- ton has ever seen; special trains brought people from all over eastern New England ; bands blared out patriotic airs, cannon boomed, and 50,000 spectators cheered themselves hoarse. But, alas! this ship of ships never spread her wings. Towed to New York, and while loading there for San Francisco, she caught fire from a waterside blaze and had to be scuttled to extinguish the flames. Donald McKay, who had completed her at his own charge, surrendered the hulk to the under- writers; and they rebuilt her, without the upper deck, reduced to three thousand three hundred and fifty tons measurement, and with a much smaller rig. She was still for many years the largest ship in the world, and exercised a considerable in- fluence on naval architecture. She may be considered the progenitor of the French and German four-masted and five- masted ships and barques, which were still doing a large share of the world's carrying trade before the war. Admiral Paris, the great French authority on naval construction, writes that he lost no opportunity to inspect the Great Republic when she visited French ports. The French Government had a splendid model of her built for the marine museum in the Louvre; and François Roux, last of the famous marine artists of that name in Marseilles, painted her portrait for the same museum.
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McKAY'S BLACK-BALLERS
It is altogether fitting and appropriate that the model of the greatest of Yankee clippers should be under the same roof with the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
MCKAY'S AUSTRALIAN BLACK-BALLERS
In 1854 the building of clipper ships in the United States began to slacken perceptibly; and of the fifteen or so that were built in Boston, the only one that deserves to be mentioned in the same class with McKay's was the Blue Jacket, 235 feet long and 1790 tons, built by Robert E. Jackson at East Boston, and after her first transatlantic passage sold to a London owner. She and the Red Jacket and the Sovereign of the Seas made such a name for Boston clippers in the Australian trade that James Baines & Co., of Liverpool, contracted with Don- ald Mckay for four great clipper ships of over 2,000 tons each for his Australian Black Ball Line, which Mckay delivered in 1854 and 1855. These were: the Lightning, 243 ft. long, 421/2 ft. beam, 2084 tons ; the Champion of the Seas, 252 ft. long, 451/2 ft. beam, 2448 tons; the James Baines, 266 ft. long, 441/2 ft. beam, 2515 tons; and the Donald McKay, 2601/2 ft. long, 46 ft. beam, 2595 tons.
None of these vessels ever sailed under the American flag, but they were fortunate in being given drivers for captains and were the pride and glory of the British Australian packet service. The Lightning, the Baines, and the Mckay together have the five fastest day's runs of sailing ships on record; and the first two have records in the Australian trade that have never been beaten. The Baines and the Champion combined the imposing majesty of a man-of-war with the airy grace of the clipper; the former was unique in carrying skysail-stud- dingsails, and a main moonsail. On one occasion she logged 21 knots, which Captain Clark considers "the highest rate of speed ever made by a sailing vessel of which a reliable record has been preserved"; she also has the transatlantic record.
The Lightning was lower in the water and carried no skysails. She has the world's record for a day's run. It was on her maiden voyage to England, on March 1, 1854, and ended about 30 miles off Achill Head, Ireland. Four hundred and thirty-six nautical miles was the amazing distance that
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she covered in that sailing day of 231/2 hours-strong gale abaft the beam, foretopsail carried away, and lee rail under water the whole time. To realize what this means, we must remember that for almost thirty years after no steamer made such a day's run, and that only the fastest express steamers do it now. I have crossed the Atlantic ten times since the World War without seeing such a run made. No run of 400 miles has ever been made by a modern sailing yacht, the fastest of which have never been known to log over 16 knots. And the Light- ning, when she made her wonderful record, was laden with 2000 tons of cargo, and was drawing 21 feet of water.
On her Australian voyages, the Lightning proved equally fast, and on one occasion overtook the James Baines and left her hull down. A weekly newspaper was published on board, and the rare numbers of it that have been preserved show that the passengers passed away the time with dancing, flirting, cards, deck games, and much eating and drinking, just as they do on Atlantic liners today. In spite of her great speed, the Lightning was unusually comfortable and dry for a clipper ship, and her passengers became so much attached to her that they formed a "Lightning Association" in Australia. There is no doubt that the Lightning was the fastest sailing ship ever built ; or to be more precise, that under certain conditions- a stiff quartering gale-she made greater speed than any other sailing vessel has ever made under any conditions.
The Donald McKay, which James Baines insisted on nam- ing after that great shipbuilder, was the least sharp of these four great Black-Ballers; yet she has a day's run of 421 miles to her credit, and made consistently good passages to Austra- lia.
RECORDS
With the end of 1854, we are nearing the end of the clipper ship era, as far as the United States was concerned. Only a baker's dozen of clipper ships were built after that date, and they were all "medium" and none "extreme" clippers. It is true that many fast and fine wooden full-rigged ships were built in New England even after the Civil War: vessels such as Mckay's Glory of the Seas (1869, his last creation), Jack-
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RECORDS
son's Great Admiral (1869), and the splendid three-skysail- yard ships like the Shenandoah and Aryan, built at Bath, Maine. These were commonly called clippers; but their lines were much fuller, their rig much lower, and none but the Glory made speed comparable to the clipper ships of before 1857.
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