The Flying Cloud and the Sunda once had a great race out to Moreton Bay, in which the Sunda beat the Flying Cloud by 18 miles in a 4-day run which averaged 16 knots; this was the voyage in which Flying Cloud’s boat was capsized between Brisbane and the anchorage, the second mate and all in her being drowned.
In 1870 I find the following passages to Queensland:
Young Australia, Captain James Cooper, 241 passengers left London, 17th May—arrived Brisbane 25th August—100 days out.
Flying Cloud, Captain Owen, 385 passengers left Liverpool, 4th June—arrived Hervey’s Bay 30th August—87 days out.
Royal Dane, Captain D. R. Bolt, 497 passengers left London, 30th July—arrived Rockhampton 19th November—112 days out.
“Sunda” and “Empress of the Seas” Carry Sheep to New Zealand.
In the early days of the gold excitement, the emigrant ships rushed out and home, but in the sixties we find them making short intermediate passages; for instance, the Sunda and Empress of the Seas one year transported thousands of sheep from Australia to New Zealand, each ship making two trips between Port Phillip and Port Chalmers, with several thousands of sheep on board each trip.
The Gold Rush to Gabriel’s Gully in 1862.
In 1862 several ships were hurried across with diggers from Melbourne to Port Chalmers for the gold rush to Gabriel’s Gully. Money ran like water in Port Chalmers in those days, and as usual the gold miners were a pretty uproarious crowd. The Lightning, which was commanded at that date by Captain Tom Robertson, the marine painter, made a special trip with 900 diggers on board, and they gave Captain Robertson so much trouble that he put into the Bluff and landed a number of them there. The Blue Jacket, also, took a load of this troublesome cargo.