The Speedy Little “St. Vincent.”

Messrs. Devitt & Moore always considered that the little St. Vincent, launched in 1865 by Pile, of Sunderland, was the fastest ship they ever owned. Her measurements were:—

Registered tonnage892tons.
Length190feet.
Breadth35 „
Depth18.9 „

She was also composite built, with a 68-ft. poop and 36-ft. foc’s’le. With hard driving skippers, like J. Bissit and J. Barrett, she had as bad a reputation amongst foremast hands as the Orient flyers in the matter of wetness. However, she was such a beautifully modelled ship that she came to no harm in spite of generally travelling through the water instead of over it. But no hard driven ship comes through the westerlies year after year without a scratch, and one occasionally comes across such entries as the following in her log books:—

27th October, 1878.—Struck by a heavy squall, sustained severe damage to spars, losing bowsprit, headgear, etc.

She was not often over the 80 days going out, and her times coming home would have been as good, if she had not come via the Cape and St. Helena like most South Australian traders; nevertheless she was usually home in under 90 days. In spite of being hard driven for most of her life the St. Vincent was still afloat in 1905 as a Norwegian barque under the name of Axel.