ASIA mTTTTrnTRiT I ,AAiA*4^.i*, CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION ON CHINA AND THE CHINESE Cornell University Library VK 15.L92 The China clippers / ill 3 1924 024 151 957 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tile Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024151957 THE CHINA CLIPPERS THE CHINA CLIPPERS BY BASIL LUBBOCK Author of "Round the Horn Before the Mast" ; "Jack Derringer, a Tale of Deep Water" ; and "Deep Sea Warriors" WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS SECOND EDITION GLASGOW JAMES BROWN 6- SON, PUBLISHERS 52 TO 58 Darnley Street 1914 'Y " DEDICATION. ®c6icatc0 to:— " . The sailor of the sail, breed of the oaken heart, Who drew the world together and spread our race apart. Whose conquests are the measure of thrice the ocean's girth. Whose trophies are the nations that necklace half the earth. Lord of the bnnt and gasket, and master of the yard To whom no land was distant to whom no sea was barred. PREFACE. This book is an eftort to preserve the records of the most perfect type of sailing ship at the very height of its development, and it has been written entirely for sailors and those who are interested in shipping. In it I have put down as simply as possible the personal history of certain ships and that in the plain language of the sea without any attempt to explain technical or seafaring terms for the benefit of the landsman. At the same time the reader must not expect to find highly-coloured descriptions of great sea adventures—the adventures are there right enough, but he who wishes to find them must search deep into the cold print of bald statements and read between the lines by the light of his own experience. The material gathered together in this book has been culled from countless abstract log books, as well as from information supplied to me, not only by the men who sailed the ships but also by their owners, designers and builders. Indeed I have to thank so many people for their heJp that a page of print would not contain their names, and I can only hope that this book may, perhaps, recall some pleasant sea memories and thus in some slight way recompense them for their kindness and trouble. JVeie.—When the word mile is used in this book, the sea-mile or 6080 feet is always meant, not the statute or land mile which is only 5280 feet. CONTENTS PART I. The Baltimore Clippers - CONTENTS PA8B 117 The Challenge of the American Naifigation Club - ii8 Dicky Green and the Challenger - - ii8 The Challenger and the Challenge - 121 Witch of the Wave's Passage Home in 1852 121 Race between Stomoway and Chrysolite '^3 Best Tea Passages of 1852 - - ^ Cairngorm • - Tea Passages of 1853 - - '^5 Lord of the Isles a.nA Northfleet '^S 1 28 Tea Passages of 1854 - - '^° Nightingale's Passage in 1855 " British Clippers of the late Fifties - - 129 A Yankee Captain's Cuteness " '3° £ate Catnie and Fiery Cross • 'S' Robin Hood acA Friar Tuck - - • 13* Tea Passages of 1856 - - 132 Tea Passages of 1857 - 134 Tea Passages of 1858 13S Race between Cairngorm and Lammermuir • - 136 Ellen Rodger and Ziba - 138 Chaa-sze - • - - 138 PART II. The Builders and Designers of the Famous Tea Clippers - - 141 The Beauty of Steele's Creations - 143 Pride of the Clyde Shipwrights - 144 Craze for Neatness Aloft in Aberdeen Ships - 144 Sail Plans of the Crack Clippers - 145 Deck Plans - 149 Dead Rise and Ballasting - 149 Sheer - .... ISO Rigidity of Build . ISO Speed of Tea Clippers compared with the Black Bailers, Yankee Clippers, and Later Iron Clippers 151 Weatherliness of the Tea Clippers - IS3 Therm^ipyUe beating to Windward - IS3 Weatherliness of Sir Lancelot and Ariel IS4 Best Day's Rtm of a British Tea Clipper iSS Speed of the Crack Tea Clippers compared The Handling of a Tea Clipper - 157 The Owners 160 CONTENTS xi PASE The Captains ... - 162 Roses used by the Captains against One Another . - 164 The Pride of Captains in their Ships - - 167 Tea Clipper Crews - - - 168 Thermopylaes Cock - - - 171 Outward and Intermediate Passages 173 Life on the Coast ..... 174 The Pilots on the Coast—Chinese and European - - 175 Chinese Pirates - - - - -179 Zon/ ^ofau/oy and the Pirate Lorchas - - - 180 The Pirates and AriePs Sampan in Hong Kong Harbour - 181 The Looting of the Young Lockinvar - • - - 183 Cutting out Ballast Lighters at Yokohama in 1867 - - 1S4 To Japan against the N.E. Monsoon - - 186 The Tea Ports ... - 187 Allowances to be made in Calculating the Racing Records - 187 The Tea Chests .... -188 Preparations for the Race Home from Foochow - - - 189 Loading the Tea - - - 191 The Falcon, First of the Improved Clippers 193 The Tea Race of 1859 - - 194 The Tea Race of i860 - 195 Fiery Cross • 196 Flying Spur - - 196 The Lord Macauby - - 198 The Tea Race of 1861 - I99 The Tea Race of 1862 - - 200 The Tea Race of 1863 - - 205 Clipper Ships Launched 1861-1862 - 205 Serica and Taepitig - - - 206 Black Prince and BeUed Will - - - 206 - Composite Construction - - - 207 - 208 The Tea Race of 1864 - - The Tea Race of 1865 - - - - 209 - 211 TaeArUl - - - - - The Sir Lancelot . - • - - 214 5jy Zaw«&/'i Unfortunate Maiden Voyage - - . 215 Great Tea Race of 1866 ... - - 217 The THania .-•- - 235 Titanids Disastrous Passage Out in 1866-7 - - - 237 1 1 xii CONTENTS PAOB - 2*^9 Sir Lancelot dismasted on her Passage Out in 1866-7 ArieVs Record Passage Out to Hong Kong in 1866-7 . - - 24s The Tea Race of 1867 Undine Lahloo, Leander, and 259 The Tea Clippers built in 1867, Spindrift, '^'^ 262-263 The Tea Race of 1868 - 274 Thermopylae 277 Windhover and Katsow - ' . 27 The Tea Race of 1869 - - - - 3 Cutty Sark- - - 2 Outward Passages to China 1869-70 • • "^97 297 Norman Court - - ... The Caliph - - 30 Wylo, Ambassador, Erne and Osaka %^ Oberon - - . - - - 303 The Tea Race of 1870 • 3^5 The Unlucky Black Adder - • - 309 Hallowe'en - - • 324 Lothair - - 326 Outward Passages in 1870-71 - - 327 Tea Passages of 1 87 • 33° The China Trade in 1872 - - - 332 Tea Passages of 1872 - 333 Norman Court in a Typhoon 334 The Race between Cutty Sark and Thermopylae - 339 Tea Trade of 1873 - - - -346 Best Passages, 1874-1878, Shanghai, Foochow and Whampoa to London 351 The After-Life of the Tea Clippers - - - 35^ APPENDIX Appendix A— British Tea Clippers - - ii-iv . , , B—Sail Plan of Tea Clipper Sir Lancelot v ,, C—Spar Measurements of iVurwaw C«K>< vi ,, D—Log of Thermopylae on her Maiden Voyage, 1868-1869 vii-.i ,, E—Abstract Log of Hallowe'en, Capt. James Watt, Shanghai - to London xi-xiv „ F—Complete List of Thermopyla^s Outward and Homeward Passages under the Aberdeen White Star House Flag 1868-1890 ... rs Complete List of Cutty Sarins Australian „ G— Passages xvi „ H—Abstract Log ot Ariel, Captain Keay, Foochow to London (1866). From Captain Keay's Private Journal xvii-xxxiii ILLUSTRATIONS Taeping and Ariel racing up Channel—Tea Race, 1866 • PLANS Slaghaund and Flying Cloud THE CHINA CLIPPERS PART I O fair she was to look on, as some spirit of thd sea. When she raced from China, homeward, with her freight of fragrant tea Aad the ^Ui^ swift bonitd sind the wide-Winged albatross Claimed kinship with the clipper beneath the Southern Cross. Close-hauled, with shortened canvas, swift and plunging she could sweep Through the gale that rose to bar her wild pathway on the deep ; And before the gale blew over, half her drenched and driven crew, To the tune of " Reuben Ranzo," hoisted topsail yards anew. From the haven of the present she has cleared and slipped away, Loaded deep- and running free for the port of yesterday. And the cargo that she carried, ah ! it was not China tea. She took with her all the glanSouf and romance of life at sea. —K. Tardif. The Baltimore CUppers. first ships that were ever built with I HE speed instead of carrying capacity as the chief desideratum were the long, low, flush-decked Baltimore brigs and schooners, which by reason of their unusual sailing powers became celebrated the world over under the name of the "Baltimore Clippers." These vessels dated from as far back as the American War of Independence, many of them were privateers, still more of them were slavers, whilst not a few ranged the Indies with the dreaded skull and crossbones flying from their signal 2 THE CHINA CLIPPERS halliards. These Yankee free-lances were wonder- fully speedy in light airs and in turning to wind- ward; and, carrying as they did large desperate crews and heavy armaments, often proved them- selves more than a match for the tubby, overmasted sloops and brigs of the British Navy. The Baltimore type had several very striking peculiarities found in no other ships of the same date. It is supposed to have first originated in St. Michael's, Talbot County, where the art of shipbuilding had been handed down from father to son for generations. Its chief features were great beam, placed far forward, giving a very fine run from a high bow with plenty of sheer to a low stern. Both stem, sternpost and masts were unusually raked, and it was this feature in the masts of a ship, together with a low freeboard, which, in the eyes of a stranger, gave immediate cause for anxiety and alarm, for any vessel described by the lookout as " a rakish looking craft" was at once suspected of being an ocean free-lance.