The Orient Composite Clippers.

It was during the sixties that the Orient Line came to be known in Australia for the remarkable speed of its beautiful little composite clippers, consisting of:—

Date Built	Ship	Tonnage	Builders.
1863	Coonatto	633	Bilbe, of London
1864	Goolwa	717	Hall, of Aberdeen
1864	Borealis	920	Bilbe, of London
1865	Darra	999	Hall, of Aberdeen
1865	Yatala	1127	Bilbe, of London
1866	Argonaut	1073	„ „

The Coonatto’s measurements were—Length 160 ft. 2 in.; beam 29 ft.; depth 18 ft. 7 in. She was an out and out clipper with very fine lines, but like most of Bilbe’s ships—very wet. However this may in part be put down to the hard-driving of her skipper, Begg, a Highlander, who never spared her and made some very smart passages out and home. Her best run to the Semaphore Lightship was 66 days, and she once did a 70-day passage out after broaching to off St. Paul’s Island and losing both helmsmen and the wheel itself overboard. This famous little ship stranded on Beachy Head in 1876.

“PEKINA” and “COONATTO,” at Port Adelaide, 1867.

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“JOHN DUTHIE,” at Circular Quay, Sydney.

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The Darra also went out to Adelaide in under 70 days, on which occasion her captain wrote home that she “dived off the Cape and came up to blow off the Leeuwin.”