Going to Honolulu, the Sovereign of the Seas loaded whale-oil for New York. In the course of the passage she sailed 3144 sea miles in 10 consecutive days, and arrived in New York in 82 days. There she loaded for Liverpool, sailed on June 18, 1852, and anchored in the Mersey 13 days and 19 hours later. During this passage she covered 340 sea miles in a day. Her next voyage was to San Francisco, and during the return passage, "in 24 consecutive hours she ran 430 geographical miles." (Eastburn pamphlet.)
The Antelope and the Surprise are credited with making passages from San Francisco to New York in 97 days; the John Gilpin and the Sweepstakes in 94; the Flying Fish and the Great Republic in 92, and the Sword Fish in 91. Professor J. Russell Smith's Ocean Carrier says the Comet made the passage in 76 days. Her record is disputed (see Shipping Illustrated, New York, April 3, 1909), but the Nautical Magazine, April, 1856, confirms it. It is not disputed that the Northern Light ran from San Francisco to Boston in 76 days, and Captain A. H. Clark, in Harper's Magazine, June, 1908, says the Trade Wind made the San Francisco-New York passage in the same number of days.
Clipper Ship WITCH OF THE WAVE
The Great Republic, built by Donald McKay, was the largest American clipper ship. She was "325 feet long, 53 feet wide and her whole depth is 39 feet." She was "of 4000 tons register and full 6000 tons stowage capacity." She had four masts, the after, or spanker, mast carrying fore and aft sails only. Her main-yard was 120 feet long. After she was loaded at New York for her maiden voyage she was accidentally burned, the total loss, as insured, amounting to $400,000. The sunken hull was raised, rebuilt at a cost of $27,000 and she was then rigged as before. In rebuilding her, a less depth of hull was given, but she was still able to carry 4000 tons dead weight. With 3000 tons in her hold she ran from New York to the coast of England in 12 days. In the Guano trade from the west coast of South America she was credited with making 412 miles in one day. (Admiral Preble in U. S. Serv. Mag., July, 1889.) The Red Jacket once covered 413 sea miles in a day, and the Flying Scud claimed a day's run of 449, but this was disputed. (See Nautical Magazine, June, 1855.) The undisputed record day's run was made by the Lightning, built by Donald McKay, for English capitalists. A letter from McKay which appeared in the Scientific American on November 26, 1859, says:—
"Although I designed and built the clipper ship Lightning, and therefore ought to be the last to praise her, yet such has been her performance since Englishmen learned to sail her, that I must confess I feel proud of her. You are aware that she was so sharp and concave forward that one of her stupid captains, who did not comprehend the principle upon which she was built, persuaded the owners to fill in the hollows of her bows. They did so, and according to their Bullish bluff notions, she was not only better for the addition, but would sail faster, and wrote me to that effect. Well, the next passage to Melbourne, Australia, she washed the encumbrance away on one side, and when she returned to Liverpool, the other side was also cleared away. Since then she has been running as I modelled her. As a specimen of her speed I may say that I saw recorded in her log (of 24 hours) 436 nautical miles, a trifle over 18 knots an hour."
A few records will give an idea of the profits of the best of the clippers. The Sovereign of the Seas received $84,000 freight money for the passage when she was dismasted, and her owner says she earned $200,000 in the first eleven months. The Surprise, Captain Dumaresque, in a voyage from New York to San Francisco and then by way of China home, made a net profit of $50,000 above her cost and all expenses. The Great Republic, according to Preble, received $160,000 freight in a passage from New York to San Francisco. It seems worth noting here that the insurance rates on these hard-driven clippers were far lower than can now be obtained by the best of modern sailing ships.
The most interesting period in the history of the American merchant marine is the clipper ship era. The story has been told over and again, but the interest never flags. And yet while those ships were sweeping the seas and lying in port where their captains walked the piers in suits of lustrous China silks; and while the newspapers of Europe as well as America were printing in leaded lines the details of their wonderful passages, the seafaring people of the United States were living in a fool's paradise. The work that was to drive the American flag from the principal trade routes of the seas had been begun before the keel of the clipper Rainbow was stretched. Our seafaring people saw it, too, and even helped it on, but with but one notable exception, so far as the record shows, they utterly failed to comprehend its significance.
The character and effect of that work shall be described in another chapter. It remains to consider here one other interesting fact about the clippers. It is demonstrable that the shapes of the much-lauded clipper hulls had only a trifling, if any, influence upon the speed attained. Indeed the lines upon which the builders of the most famous of them all relied for speed were inferior, as modern designers know, to those of some ordinary ships wholly unknown to the record.
As a first bit of evidence in proof of this assertion here is the story of the Natchez in which Captain "Bob" Waterman first won fame. In 1843 Waterman sailed her around the world and made the passage from Canton to New York in 94 days. The whole voyage required only 9 months and 26 days. In 1844 he drove her from New York to Valparaiso in 71 days, thence to Callao in 8, and thence to Hongkong in 54. She then loaded teas at Canton and he drove her from that port to New York, 13,955 miles, in 78 days. This last passage was but one day longer than Waterman's record passage of 77 days made in the Sea Witch, "the swiftest clipper of her day." But the Natchez was not a clipper, although she has been described as one. She was built with full lines and a flat bottom in order that she might carry huge loads of cotton from New Orleans, across the shoals at the mouths of the Mississippi, and around to New York; and while engaged in that trade, she had earned the reputation of being one of the slowest ships on the American coast!