Clipper Ships and the Golden Age of Sail Read online

  Men out on the bowsprit taking in sail. At times this could be a very risky undertaking for a clipper ship. Her sharp bow was prone to plunging heavily in high seas and there was a very real danger of getting washed off.

  However, these clippers were high-sided and lightly loaded and would have been able to withstand very heavy driving.

  The Australian gold rush vessels marked the final stages of the American clipper ship era. By 1855, extreme clipper ship building in the US was at an end; the need for speed was bounded by a desire for good cargo-carrying capacities and shipbuilders started to compromise with more conservative designs. Meanwhile, the old clippers, badly strained from being thrashed around the Horn, were a shadow of their former selves and generally drifted into obscurity. The zenith of commercial sail in America was over. The Civil War of 1860 provided the final nail in the coffin.

  Time for tea

  Happily, this was not the end of the clipper ship era. It was the British obsession with tea that was to bring about one final and poetic flourish. The need to transport teas back from China as quickly as possible had ensured that fast little vessels continued to be launched from British yards throughout the 1850s. By the 1860s competition had started to intensify. Britain was a land of tea connoisseurs and Chinese tea was considered the finest of all. The first crop, picked in late April, was of the highest quality but limited in quantity. Pekoe and Kaisow were two of the finest first crop teas and were hurried home by the very fastest tea clippers at the end of May.

  Different types of teas.

  The big American clipper Sovereign of the Seas off San Francisco. The Australian gold rush extended the boom in American clipper shipbuilding, but not for long.

  This chart of the South China Sea dates from 1801 and gives a good idea of the nightmarish labyrinth of shoals and rocks that littered the route home.

  The first ship home with new teas was guaranteed a high price and thus it became a race. In 1861 shippers introduced a £500 bonus for the first ship home and the race became official. By 1865, it was as closely followed as the Grand National or the Derby and just as hotly contested. Skippers would try any ruse to get ahead of their rivals. This was racing in the truest sense of the word. Forget modern yacht racing – to compare the two is like comparing BMX racing with the Tour de France. The captain of a clipper ship had up to 50 different sails to set on three masts. This created the sort of exacting work that is almost unimaginable to the modern-day sailor. A successful racing captain had to expect to be deprived of sleep for weeks on end.

  The risks were very real and navigation was sketchy at best as incomplete charts of the China Sea often left reefs unmarked. The contest between the British tea clipper Chrysolite and the American clipper Memnon in 1851 is an excellent example of the risks taken while racing. The two vessels had been company all the way down from Canton. As night fell on the evening of 23 June, the pair was approaching a narrow channel between Bangka and Pulo Leat. Captain Gordon of the Memnon was concerned and signalled the Chrysolite to ask if she was proceeding through. Her captain replied in the affirmative and the competitive

  Two views of the shapely iron frames of the tea clipper Ambassador, lying at Punta Arenas, Chile, where she was beached and abandoned in 1899. She was composite-built of wood planking on an iron framework and these frames have lasted well over a century.

  These three plans clearly illustrate the development of the clipper ship. The top lines are for a US packet ship of the 1840s. In the middle is the extreme American clipper Witch of the Wave, built in 1851. At the bottom is the extreme British clipper Titania, built in 1866.

  The River Clyde on a particularly clement summer day. More clippers were launched from shipyards along the banks of the Clyde than anywhere else in the world.

  Gordon felt compelled to follow. Midway down this treacherous channel, the Memnon was struck by a squall and driven onto an uncharted reef. She was badly holed and in the morning Malay pirates boarded and stripped her. The ship was a total wreck and Captain Gordon was forced to abandon her. The endeavour to keep his boat in the race had cost him dearly.

  Far daintier than their American cousins of the 1850s, the later British clippers were designed to sail very fast both to windward and in the light airs of the China Sea. The most successful clippers were able to ghost along with only the merest cat’s paw to help them. It was often said of the very fast and successful clipper Thermopylae that she could run along at eight knots while her captain strolled the decks with a lit candle barely flickering in the breeze.

  The majority of these vessels were launched from the Clyde yards of Glasgow and incorporated many new innovations. One of the major breakthroughs was composite construction. This method used the lightness and versatility of wooden planks but had the added benefit of a strong framework of iron ribs. This gave the vessels great strength and longevity.

  Beauty at any cost

  Aesthetics became a key feature and much attention was paid to ensuring that a vessel had a very graceful sheer. A yacht-like counter stern, cut away to the very maximum, was considered the height of elegance.

  As the clipper fleet awaited the new season’s tea in Foochow, a true show of beauty unfolded. Teak decks were scrubbed and sanded until they gleamed pure white and brass fittings and glossy black sides were polished. On the waterline, the copper sheathing used to protect the hull, usually green in port, was burnished until you could see your face in it. Only the crew of a modern classic yacht anchored idle off St Tropez can fully appreciate the kind of toil this entailed. Beauty was everything.

  Perhaps the very epitome of this was the beautiful Ariel, built in 1865 in Greenock. One of the most successful tea clippers, she was noted for her elegant appearance and the comfort of the crew was severely compromised to achieve this. The deck was completely flush, featuring no raised poop deck at the stern and only a tiny deckhouse forward to cram in a crew of more than 30. Her bulwarks were also incredibly low, being only three feet high, and featured elegant painted panelling.

  The beautiful Ariel under a heavy press of sail.

  A depiction of the likely fate of the Ariel in 1872. Her stern was too fine and it is likely that she was pooped by a following sea, broached out of control, and was then pinned down on her beam ends and foundered.

  The Taeping, built in 1863 by Robert Steele of Greenock, was a typical tea clipper of the 1860s. She was probably the fastest ship in the trade between 1863 and 1866.

  The American ‘Down Easter’ Thomas Reed towing in to San Francisco Harbour. These later American clippers were built throughout the 1860s and were nowhere near as extreme as earlier vessels such as the Flying Cloud. They were named down easters as they were largely built in ‘down east’ ports such as Maine.

  Brass was let in flush on the capping rail and was a nightmare to polish. This configuration left her very vulnerable in big following seas, when she was especially liable to having her decks swept clear.

  Her yacht-like counter stern also provided very little buoyancy aft. Her captain, John Keay, wrote a vivid account of losing control of her in rough weather off the Cape of Good Hope. For several hours she was swept fore and aft and everything movable was hurled about the decks or overboard. The helmsman had to be lashed to the wheel to keep him in his rightful place. ‘The ship ran away from me,’ Keay later confided and admitted that for several hours all that could be done was hold on and hope for the best. It is telling that this same vessel later perished in the Southern Ocean while bound for Australia. Although no hands survived to tell the story, it is likely that she was simply overwhelmed by a big following sea.

  The years 1863–69 saw some of the closest racing imaginable and new vessels would arrive on the scene every season to spice up the racing still further. Many of these new arrivals were little more than yachts and very extreme designs were introduced. Built in 1869, the Cutty Sark was a survivor of this era, but in many ways she was not a typical tea clipper. She had a slightly heavier look to her
stern, higher bulwarks and slightly rough, unfinished sides, which lacked the perfect yacht-like sheen of the normal tea clipper. She also lacked the ‘ghosting’ qualities of a typical China clipper and was far more at home tearing through the Roaring Forties before a gale than floating before a fickle breeze.

  End of an era

  The year of the Cutty Sark’s launch, 1869, also marked the end of an era. It was the year that De Lesseps opened the Suez Canal. In a stroke the clippers were rendered redundant, as a steamship could have her cargo home in 50 days or less. Although they raced desperately on, competition slowly fizzled out. The Cutty Sark and the Thermopylae retreated to the Australian wool trade where they continued to race for many years – and with unparalleled success – against larger, less extreme iron clippers. The zenith of British clippers had passed and, although they raced on, their star was fading.

  The Flying Cloud at the peak of her powers. This gallant vessel survived until 1874. Reduced to a lumber trader, she went ashore off New Brunswick and her hull was burnt for its scrap metal.

  After 1880, commercial sailing ships became slaves to ever decreasing freights. Iron and steel took over from wood and every year the fleet of tall ships diminished in number, the last being snuffed out by the Second World War. Even as the last of the windjammers battled on, sailors mourned the loss of the true clipper ships. Never again would they experience the unparalleled thrill of feeling a large ship tremble like a leaf as she raced down tumbling seas, pushed to her very limit. The skills required to keep one of these big ships moving are also long forgotten. Yet we can still remember and celebrate the ships and some of the characters whose remarkable seamanship made the passages of these beautiful clippers news the world over.

  This book focuses on the captains who commanded these ships, all in their own way a cut above the average. Many were larger-than-life figures, often feared and generally flawed. Yet it took a very special and determined sort of character to get the best out of a clipper ship and there is no doubt that many of these captains were truly exceptional. Often, they earned command at a very young age, having distinguished themselves well beyond a normal skipper. Without a good captain, even the fastest ship was useless and without these determined commanders the clippers would have been nothing.

  The following chapters are a selection of stories told in fo’c’sles long after the ships and captains had gone. In the twilight of commercial sail, mariners kept their memory alive, spinning out their yarns in the off watches. Sitting by the binnacle on a tropical night or hiding in the fo’c’sle on a dark day off Cape Horn, these stories were told, embroidered and then retold. This book is an attempt to preserve some of them, for they deserve to be remembered. All of them are true.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A HELL SHIP VOYAGE WITH ‘BULLY’ WATERMAN

  New York 1851. A young skipper swaggers down South Street like he owns the place. His name is Robert Waterman and his fame is such that he is known across the city. Waterman pauses outside the offices of ship owners NL&G Griswold before heading up the marble staircase of their opulent office. He is about to make the worst decision of his life, one that will leave his reputation in tatters and end with him being hunted by the law and an angry lynch mob.

  This tale has its roots in the Californian gold rush. Ever since the discovery of Californian gold in 1849, the country had been in the grip of a fever, as prospectors from all walks of life raced to the gold fields, chasing the American dream. Gold fever also heralded the most exciting era of shipbuilding the US had ever witnessed. Clipper ships formed a vital supply line to the gold fields and, from 1849 until the end of the rush in 1854, each successive year saw taller, sharper, faster vessels leaving the east coast shipyards. These beautiful clippers were queens of the seas; in heavy weather no ship could touch them and their arrival in port was always news. Names like the Flying Cloud, the Romance of the Seas and the Great Republic captured the bullish optimism of young America at its most confident, and these lordly vessels with their snowy white canvas and rakish beauty were a powerful symbol of the country’s newfound belief.

  Captain Waterman was arguably the most talented skipper of the American clipper ship era. He had risen to his first command at the unusually young age of 28, several years before the discovery of gold in California. An exacting man, he drove himself hard, and his crew even harder, to get his ship moving. He was also not afraid to use force. A few trips in the transatlantic trade had earned him the nickname ‘Bully’ Waterman.

  Robert Waterman, young captain and doyen of New York society.

  In 1842 he was given command of an old cotton packet, the Natchez, which was put into the burgeoning China trade. The Natchez had been built with a flat bottom to help her get over the New Orleans bar and, while this had helped in her cotton days, it meant she was known in shipping circles as a heavy sluggard with poor sailing qualities. Yet Waterman’s hard driving and uncanny knack of finding a breeze turned her into the fastest and most consistent vessel in the trade, her zenith being a record-breaking run from China to New York of 78 days. This was a remarkable performance and Waterman enjoyed plaudits all round. His reward was a new ship, the Sea Witch, seen by many as the first true clipper of the era. She was well ahead of her time and the combination of a fast ship with Waterman in command was unbeatable. In 1848 he broke his own China record with a run of 77 days, a passage that has never been bettered.

  Fame and fortune

  Success turned Waterman into a celebrity in New York society and, when in town, he strutted through the streets clad in a fabulous suit of Chinese silk, every inch the young player. He had his pick of the women, too, and became known as something of a dandy, moving in rarefied circles and attracting admiring looks from society girls. By 1848 Waterman had made his fortune; he was a rich man and his reputation as the clipper captain par excellence was unsurpassed. He married Cordelia, one of the beautiful society girls, and retired to a peaceful existence in California, a million miles from both the glamorous New York life and his brutal sailing days.

  The Sea Witch was one of the first true clippers and under the command of Waterman she set some truly astonishing records in the China tea trade.

  A view of the Hudson River and New York beyond, seen from Brooklyn circa 1820.

  The clippers Flying Fish and Wild Pigeon racing around the Horn in 1853. The Flying Fish made the excellent time of 92 days from New York to San Francisco.

  The Challenge on the stocks at William Webb’s yard.

  It seemed like the end of a chapter for the greatest captain of a generation. Waterman held the belief that the day of the sailing ship was nearly over and that the glamour and celebrity attached to the clippers was on the wane. To him, future success seemed to lie away from the waves.

  However, the 1849 gold rush changed all that and the scramble to get to San Francisco thrust clipper ships back into the spotlight. Suddenly the deeds of some of Waterman’s contemporary and, to his mind, lesser skippers were headline news. Fraser, his mate, had taken over command of the Sea Witch and was basking in the limelight after a record passage out to the gold fields. New ships were being launched and records Waterman had set in the Sea Witch were shattered.

  Back in New York on a family visit, Waterman started to feel a little wistful for the glamour and celebrity he had left behind when he settled down with Cordelia. He was still a young man and still vain. As he walked along South Street admiring some of the big new clippers, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had one final glorious passage left in him. Later that day he strolled along the waterfront to William Webb’s shipyard.

  Two views of Boston Harbour during the clipper era.

  The yard was a hive of activity, and shipwrights swarmed over the shapely frames of three clippers on the stocks. Waterman was deeply impressed with the largest one, the Challenge, which was being built for NL&G Griswold. He decided to head for their office and make enquiries.

  A challenge for the Challenge

  T
he merchants NL&G Griswold were canny operators and their company had gained the nickname ‘No Loss and Great Gain Griswold’. They were delighted to meet Waterman; his celebrity lived on in shipping circles and they had no trouble luring him back into this new and exciting world. They explained that the Challenge was intended to eclipse all that had gone before her. At 230 ft long, she was the biggest, sharpest lined and most heavily sparred vessel ever built and the Griswolds spared no effort in persuading Captain Waterman to command her.

  As an added inducement, they offered him a $10,000 bonus if he made the run to San Francisco in under 90 days. For a man of Waterman’s talents, it was an achievable challenge and too much for his competitive nature to ignore. Lubricated by several drinks from the Griswolds’ well-stocked cabinet and glowing with dreams of glory, he signed on as captain. His fate was sealed.

  The Flying Cloud loading at New York prior to her record-breaking maiden voyage.

  This sail plan of the Challenge illustrates the proportions of the massive spars that Waterman insisted she carried.