The “James Baines.”
The Champion of the Seas was closely followed by the James Baines, considered by most sailormen to have been the finest and fastest of the great Mackay quartette. When she loaded troops for India in 1857 and was inspected by Queen Victoria at Portsmouth, the Queen remarked that she did not know she possessed such a splendid ship in her Mercantile Marine.
When she first arrived in Liverpool a well-known Liverpool shipowner wrote to a Boston paper:—“You want to know what professional men say about the ship James Baines? Her unrivalled passage, of course, brought her prominently before the public and she has already been visited by many of the most eminent mechanics in the country. She is so strongly built, so finely finished and is of so beautiful a model that even envy cannot prompt a fault against her. On all hands she has been praised as the most perfect sailing ship that ever entered the river Mersey.”
Donald Mackay never built two ships exactly alike, and the James Baines was of slightly fuller design than the Lightning and yet sharper and longer in the bow than the Champion of the Seas.
Her chief measurements were:—
| Registered tonnage (American) | 2525-85/90 tons. |
| „ „ (British) | 2275 „ |
| Length over all | 266 feet. |
| „ between perpendiculars | 226 „ |
| Beam | 44¾ „ |
| Depth of hold | 29 „ |
| Dead rise at half-floor | 18 inches. |
The following extracts are taken from an account of the James Baines given in the Boston Atlas at the time of her launch:—“She has a long, rakish, sharp bow with slightly concave lines below, but convex above, and it is ornamented with a bust of her namesake, which was carved in Liverpool and which is said by those who know the original to be an excellent likeness. It is blended with the cut-water, is relieved with gilded carved work and forms a neat and appropriate ornament to the bow. She is planked flush to the covering board, has a bold and buoyant sheer, graduated her whole length, rising gracefully at the ends, particularly forward; and every moulding is fair and harmonises finely with the planking and her general outline. Her stern is rounded, and although she has a full poop deck, her afterbody surpasses in neatness that of any vessel her talented builder has yet produced.
“Our most eminent mechanics consider her stern perfect. It is rounded below the line of the plank sheer, is fashioned above in an easy curve, and only shows a few inches of rise above the outline of the monkey rail: and as this rise is painted white and the rest of the hull black, when viewed broadside on, her sheer appears a continuous line along her entire length. Her stern is ornamented with carved representations of the great globe itself, between the arms of Great Britain and the United States, surrounded with fancy work, has carved and gilded drops between the cabin windows and her name above all, the whole tastefully gilded and painted. Her bulwarks are built solid and are surmounted by a monkey rail, which is panelled inside, and their whole height above the deck is about 6 feet, varying of course towards the ends.
“She has a full topgallant foc’s’le, which extends to the foremast and is fitted for the accommodation of her crew; and abaft the foremast a large house, which contains spacious galleys, several staterooms, store-rooms, an iceroom and shelters a staircase which leads to the decks below. She has a full poop deck, between 7 and 8 feet high, under which is the cabin for female passengers and before it a large house which contains the dining saloon and other apartments. The outline of the poop and the house is protected by rails, on turned stanchions, and the enclosure forms a spacious and beautiful promenade deck. She has also a small house aft, which shelters the helmsman in a recess, protects the entrance to the captain’s cabin, is also a smoking room for passengers and answers a variety of other purposes.
“The captain’s cabin and sleeping room are on the starboard side and communicate with the wheelhouse on deck, so that it will not be necessary for him to enter the cabin set apart for female passengers. Besides these the cabin contains 11 spacious staterooms, a bathroom and other useful apartments.