“Brilliant” and “Pericles.”
Duthie’s Brilliant and Thompson’s Pericles were built alongside of each other and launched on the same tide; and both ships being in the Sydney trade there was naturally great rivalry between them. The two clippers proved to be very evenly matched and it is difficult to award the palm. Pericles usually took emigrants out, Brilliant being loaded deep with general cargo, and they both loaded wool home. The two captains, Davidson of the Brilliant and Largie of Pericles, usually had a new hat on the result of each passage. Pericles with her light load line generally won the hat going out, but the Brilliant was always very hard to beat on the homeward run, and Captain Davidson, more often than not, got his hat back again.
“PERICLES.”
Photo by Hall & Co., Sydney.
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On her maiden passage Brilliant went out to Sydney in 78 days without clewing up her main royal from the Bay of Biscay to Sydney Heads. Down in the roaring forties she made three consecutive runs of 340, 345 and 338 miles by observation, a performance which I do not think any iron ship has ever beaten.
Her best homeward passage was 79 days to the Channel in 1888, but her wool passages were so regular that she was rarely allowed more than 85 days to catch the sales.
Brilliant was a specially handsome ship; painted black with a white under-body, and with a brass rail along the whole length of her topgallant bulwarks, she was always the acme of smartness, being known in Sydney as “Duthie’s yacht.”
Taking the average of 16 outward passages under Captain Davidson, we find Brilliant’s record to be 85 days, her rival Pericles had an average of 84 days for 10 passages; this was considerably helped by a very fine run of 71 days in 1886.
In 1888 Captain John Henderson took the Pericles for three voyages, leaving her to take the Samuel Plimsoll. He took the Pericles across the Pacific to San Francisco and made three passages home from the Golden Gate with wheat, his first being the best, 110 days to Falmouth.
Thompson’s sold Pericles to the Norwegians in 1904, whilst Brilliant was sold to the Italians in the following year. Brilliant, I believe, was broken up in Genoa about 10 or 12 years ago, but Pericles, until recently at any rate, was still washing about the seas disguised in the usual way as a barque.