But this greatest of all sailing ships was destined never to take a voyage with these gigantic masts and spars. Just after she had finished loading in New York for her first voyage, a warehouse fire ashore dropped embers in her rigging and she was so badly burned that she was sunk in order to save what was left. Her beautiful masts had had to be cut out of her during the fire, and when she was finally raised and rebuilt freight rates had fallen so far that it was not thought best to re-rig her in her original dress. A reduced rig was installed, making possible a great reduction in the size of her crew, but even with her reduced rig she crossed the Atlantic from Sandy Hook to Land’s End in 13 days.
Until the Civil War broke into the peaceful development of America, clipper ships were built in many yards, although the introduction of iron as a ship-building material was giving Britain the upper hand again, after the Americans had temporarily wrested it from her. This introduction of iron in itself would have caused the elimination of America from mid-19th Century ship-building, but the Civil War laid a heavy hand on the young country, and American ships largely disappeared from the sea, save along the Confederate coast where great fleets lay in wait for fast blockade runners that slipped out to Bermuda and the Bahamas for cargoes of European goods to take through the blockade to the needy South.
A GLOUCESTER FISHERMAN
Such schooners as this are common in the New England fishing fleets. They are seaworthy and fast, and probably the men who sail them are the greatest seamen of our time.
England, however, had once more found herself, and soon her yards were building clipper ships that equalled the Americans—surpassed them, some say, but more than one challenge for an ocean race was issued by groups of Americans only to find no takers in British shipping circles. Now and then, it is true, British ships outsailed American. But now and then, too, Americans outsailed their transatlantic brothers, so it is difficult to decide as to their relative merits.
But there is no doubt of one thing—the greatest ocean race ever sailed was one in which five British tea clippers were engaged. The Ariel, Taeping, Fiery Cross, Taitsing, and Serica sailed from Foo-chow, China, within two days of each other, on the 29th, 30th, and 31st of May, 1865, all bound for London. Forty-six days later the Fiery Cross rounded the Cape of Good Hope, followed by the Ariel, which also made that meridian in forty-six days; the Taeping in forty-seven days; the Serica in fifty days; and the Taitsing in fifty-four days. Through June and July they sailed, and on August 9th the Fiery Cross and Taeping sighted each other. The ships passed the Azores in the following order, Ariel, Taitsing, Fiery Cross, Serica, and Taeping, all closely grouped. From there to the English Channel the race continued, with each ship unacquainted with the position of the others, save occasionally when their courses brought them together. Yet on the morning of September 5th, two of these ships sighted each other as they entered the English Channel. As they came closer together each recognized the other—they were the Ariel and the Taeping, which had left Foo-chow within twenty minutes of each other more than three months before. Up the Channel they raced, side by side, and on September 6th, these two ships, and the Serica, which had sailed up the Channel four hours behind them, docked in London on the same tide and all three of them within an hour and forty-five minutes of each other, the Taeping the winner by a few trifling minutes. Nor were they far ahead of the other two, which docked on the 7th and 9th. Three ships had sailed 16,000 miles in 99 days, and the other two in 101. Never before or since has a long ocean race shown such evenly matched ships.
AN AMERICAN COASTING SCHOONER
Square-rigged ships have largely disappeared because, among other things, their crews were large. These schooners, which sometimes have four or five masts, can be handled by small crews and consequently are able to continue to vie with steam.