s, or not quite sixteen knots an hour. In six
days she traversed 1748 miles, an average of 291 miles a day. In this
Australian trade the American clippers made little effort to compete.
Those engaged in it were mostly built for English owners and sailed by
British skippers, who could not reasonably be expected to get the most
out of these loftily sparred Yankee ships, which were much larger than
their own vessels of the same type. The Lightning showed what she could
do from Melbourne to Liverpool by making the passage in sixty-three'
days, with 3722 miles in ten consecutive days and one day's sprint of
412 miles.
In the China tea trade the Thermopylae drove home from Foo-chow in
ninety-one days, which was equaled by the Sir Launcelot. The American
Witch of the Wave had a ninety-day voyage to her credit, and the Comet
ran from Liverpool to Shanghai in eighty-four days. Luck was a larger
factor on this route than in the California or Australian trade because
of the fitful uncertainty of the monsoons, and as a test of speed it was
rather unsatisfactory. In a very fair-minded and expert summary, Captain
Arthur H. Clark, * in his youth an officer on Yankee clippers, has
discussed this question of rival speed and power under sail--a question
which still absorbs those who love the sea. His conclusion is that
in ordinary weather at sea, when great power to carry sail was not
required, the British tea clippers were extremely fast vessels, chiefly
on account of their narrow beam. Under these conditions they were
perhaps as fast as the American clippers of the same class, such as the
Sea Witch, White Squall, Northern Light, and Sword-Fish. But if speed
is to be reckoned by the maximum performance of a ship under the most
favorable conditions, then the British tea clippers were certainly no
match for the larger American ships such as the Flying Cloud, Sovereign
of the Seas, Hurricane, Trade Wind, Typhoon, Flying Fish, Challenge, and
Red Jacket. The greater breadth of the American ships in proportion to
their length meant power to carry canvas and increased buoyancy which
enabled them, with their sharper ends, to be driven in strong gales and
heavy seas at much greater speed than the British clippers. The latter
were seldom of more than one thousand tons' register and combined in a
superlative degree the good qualities of merchant ships.
* "The Clipper Ship Era." N.Y., 1910.
It was the California trade, brief and crowde
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