At noon on the 4th took a pilot off Point Lynas; was detained eight hours for want of water on the bar; arrived in the Mersey at 10 P.M.; thus making the passage in 14 days 4 hours, apparent time. Deducting eight hours for detention by tide at the bar, and also deducting the difference of longitude, 4 hours and 45 minutes, gives the mean or true time of passage, 13 days 11 hours and 15 minutes. Average speed for the passage, 9½ miles per hour. On this passage, the Dreadnought was off Cape Clear, Ireland, in 12 days 12 hours from Sandy Hook.
She sailed from New York, May 4, 1855, and arrived at Liverpool May 20th; passage recorded as 15 days 12 hours.
She sailed from Sandy Hook, January 24, 1856 (time not given), and ran to noon, January 25th, 345 miles; 26th, 312 miles; 27th, 252 miles; 28th, 223 miles; 29th, violent gale, drifted 90 miles west-southwest; 30th, 115 miles; 31st, 212 miles; February 1st, 228 miles; 2d, 208 miles; 3d, 185 miles; 4th, 238 miles; 5th, 252 miles; 6th, 244 miles; 7th, 212 miles; 8th, off Point Lynas. Hove-to until daylight for pilot and tide. Total distance run 3116 miles in 14 days, or an average of 222 miles per day.
The Dreadnought sailed from New York, February 27, 1859; at 3 P.M. discharged pilot, and ran to noon, February 28th, 200 miles; wind south to west-northwest, brisk breezes. March 1st, 293 miles; west-northwest fresh breezes. 2d, 262 miles; northwest to north-northwest brisk gales and snow-squalls. 3d, 208 miles; north-northwest to north heavy gales and snow-squalls. 4th, 178 miles; north-northeast to north heavy gales and snow-squalls. 5th, 218 miles; north to north-northeast heavy gales and snow-squalls. 6th, 133 miles; northeast to south light breezes. 7th, 282 miles; south-southeast brisk breezes and clear. 8th, 313 miles; south-southwest to south fresh breezes and clear. 9th, 268 miles; south to southeast brisk gales. 10th, 205 miles; southeast to southwest brisk breezes and squally. 11th, 308 miles; south to southwest strong breeze and squally. 12th, 150 miles; southwest, thick weather. Distance sailed from Sandy Hook to the Northwest Lightship, 3018 miles; passage 13 days 8 hours, mean time.
It was during this passage that the Dreadnought is supposed to have made the run from Sandy Hook to Queenstown in 9 days 17 hours, but an analysis of the abstract log shows that 9 days 21 hours after discharging her pilot to the eastward of Sandy Hook she was not within 400 miles of Queenstown.
How this mythical tale originated, is difficult to imagine, but it has been passed along from one scribe to another these many years, until at last it has reached the dignity of an “historical fact,� having recently been embalmed in an encyclopedia. Curiously enough, Captain Samuels appears to be
The “Dreadnought�
almost the only person who has written about the Dreadnought who does not refer to this fable. In his memoirs, he makes no mention of it.
The best passage to the westward made by the Dreadnought was in 1854, when she ran from the Rock Light, Liverpool, to Sandy Hook in 19 days While it cannot be said that the Dreadnought ever made the fastest passage of a sailing vessel between New York and Liverpool, as the records in this respect are held by the Red Jacket, Captain Asa Eldridge, from Sandy Hook to the Rock Light, in 13 days 1 hour, in 1854, and by the Andrew Jackson, Captain John Williams, from Rock Light to Sandy Hook in 15 days, in 1860, still the uniform speed of the Dreadnought’s many voyages entitles her to a high place among the celebrated packet ships of the past.