She was off the Old Head of Kinsale at 4 a.m. on 22nd October, passed Minehead at 10 a.m., the Tuskar at 3.30 p.m., and Holyhead Light at 8.30 p.m. A pilot was picked up off Point Lynas at 10.30 p.m., who kept her under easy sail through the night, waiting for enough water to take her over the bar. The Lightning anchored in the Mersey at 9.30 a.m. on 23rd October; her actual time being 64 days 3 hours 10 minutes, a record, which, I believe, has never been broken.
The Lightning brought answers to letters sent out in the Great Britain which left Liverpool on 13th June, thus making a course of post of only 132 days. The Lightning’s round voyage, including 20 days in port, was only 5 months 8 days and 21 hours.
“Champion of the Seas.”
Whilst the Red Jacket and Lightning were astonishing the world, Donald Mackay was building the Champion of the Seas and James Baines for the Black Ball Line. He was given a free hand, and the new vessels were intended to be more perfect than anything he had hitherto attempted.
The Champion of the Seas was launched in April, 1854, and, owing to the monster four-master Great Republic being cut down a deck, claimed the honour of being the largest ship in the world until the James Baines eclipsed her.
Her hull measurements were as follows:—
| Tonnage (builders’ measurement) | 2447 tons. |
| „ (registered) | 1947 „ |
| Length of keel | 238 feet. |
| „ between perpendiculars | 252 „ |
| Fore rake | 14 „ |
| Extreme beam | 45½ „ |
| Depth | 29 „ |
| Dead rise at half-floor | 18 inches. |
| Sheer | 4½ „ |
| Concavity of load line forward | 2½ „ |
In strength of construction she was a considerable improvement on the Lightning. Her ends were as long but not quite so sharp or concave and were considered to be more harmoniously designed. She had an upright sternpost and her stern was semi-elliptical and ornamented with the Australian coat-of-arms. Her figure-head was a life-like representation of the old-time shellback and was an object of interest wherever she went.
It is thus described by Captain Clark:—“One of the most striking figure-heads was the tall square-built sailor, with dark curly hair and bronzed clean-shaven face, who stood at the bow of the Champion of the Seas. A black belt with a massive brass buckle supported his white trousers, which were as tight about the hips as the skin of an eel and had wide, bell-shaped bottoms that almost hid his black polished pumps. He wore a loose-fitting blue and white checked shirt with wide rolling collar and black handkerchief of ample size, tied in the most rakish of square knots with long flowing ends. But perhaps the most impressive of this mariner’s togs were his dark-blue jacket and the shiny tarpaulin hat which he waved aloft in the grip of his brawny tattooed right hand.”