The Old Merchant Marine [40]
a share of the ship and received a percentage of the freights and passage money. His rank when ashore was more exalted than can be conveyed in mere words. Any normal New York boy would sooner have been captain of a Black Ball packet than President of the United States, and he knew by heart the roaring chantey
It is of a flash packet, A packet of fame. She is bound to New York And the Dreadnought's her name. She is bound to the west'ard Where the stormy winds blow. Bound away to the west'ard, Good Lord, let her go.
There were never more than fifty of these ships afloat, a trifling fraction of the American deep-water tonnage of that day, but the laurels they won were immortal. Not only did the English mariner doff his hat to them, but a Parliamentary committee reported in 1837 that "the American ships frequenting the ports of England are stated by several witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class among the ships of Great Britain, the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent as seamen and navigators and more uniformly persons of education than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class trading from England to America."
It was no longer a rivalry with the flags of other nations but an unceasing series of contests among the packets of the several lines, and their records aroused far more popular excitement than when the great steamers of this century were chipping off the minutes, at an enormous coal consumption, toward a five-day passage. Theirs were tests of real seamanship, and there were few disasters. The packet captain scorned a towboat to haul him into the stream if the wind served fair to set all plain sail as his ship lay at her wharf. Driving her stern foremost, he braced his yards and swung her head to sea, clothing the masts with soaring canvas amid the farewell cheers of the crowds which lined the waterfront.
A typical match race was sailed between the Black Ball liner Columbus, Captain De Peyster, and the Sheridan, Captain Russell, of the splendid Dramatic fleet, in 1837. The stake was $10,000 a side, put up by the owners and their friends. The crews were picked men who were promised a bonus of fifty dollars each for winning. The ships sailed side by side in February, facing the wild winter passage, and the Columbus reached Liverpool in the remarkable time of sixteen days, two days ahead of the Sheridan.
The crack packets were never able to reel off more than twelve or fourteen knots under the most favorable conditions, but they were kept going night and day, and some of them maintained their schedules almost with the regularity of the early steamers. The Montezuma, the Patrick Henry, and the Southampton crossed from New York to Liverpool in fifteen days, and for years the Independence held the record of fourteen days and six hours. It remained for the Dreadnought, Captain Samuel Samuels, in 1859, to set the mark for packet ships to Liverpool at thirteen days and eight hours.
Meanwhile the era of the matchless clipper had arrived and it was one of these ships which achieved the fastest Atlantic passage ever made by a vessel under sail. The James Baines was built for English owners to be used in the Australian trade. She was a full clipper of 2515 tons, twice the size of the ablest packets, and was praised as "the most perfect sailing ship that ever entered the river Mersey." Bound out from Boston to Liverpool, she anchored after twelve days and six hours at sea.
There was no lucky chance in this extraordinary voyage, for this clipper was the work of the greatest American builder, Donald McKay, who at the same time designed the Lightning for the same owners. This clipper, sent across the Atlantic on her maiden trip, left in her foaming wake a twenty-four hour run which no steamer had even approached and which was not equaled by the fastest express steamers until twenty-five years later when the greyhound Arizona ran eighteen knots in one hour on her trial trip. This is a rather startling statement when one reflects
It is of a flash packet, A packet of fame. She is bound to New York And the Dreadnought's her name. She is bound to the west'ard Where the stormy winds blow. Bound away to the west'ard, Good Lord, let her go.
There were never more than fifty of these ships afloat, a trifling fraction of the American deep-water tonnage of that day, but the laurels they won were immortal. Not only did the English mariner doff his hat to them, but a Parliamentary committee reported in 1837 that "the American ships frequenting the ports of England are stated by several witnesses to be superior to those of a similar class among the ships of Great Britain, the commanders and officers being generally considered to be more competent as seamen and navigators and more uniformly persons of education than the commanders and officers of British ships of a similar size and class trading from England to America."
It was no longer a rivalry with the flags of other nations but an unceasing series of contests among the packets of the several lines, and their records aroused far more popular excitement than when the great steamers of this century were chipping off the minutes, at an enormous coal consumption, toward a five-day passage. Theirs were tests of real seamanship, and there were few disasters. The packet captain scorned a towboat to haul him into the stream if the wind served fair to set all plain sail as his ship lay at her wharf. Driving her stern foremost, he braced his yards and swung her head to sea, clothing the masts with soaring canvas amid the farewell cheers of the crowds which lined the waterfront.
A typical match race was sailed between the Black Ball liner Columbus, Captain De Peyster, and the Sheridan, Captain Russell, of the splendid Dramatic fleet, in 1837. The stake was $10,000 a side, put up by the owners and their friends. The crews were picked men who were promised a bonus of fifty dollars each for winning. The ships sailed side by side in February, facing the wild winter passage, and the Columbus reached Liverpool in the remarkable time of sixteen days, two days ahead of the Sheridan.
The crack packets were never able to reel off more than twelve or fourteen knots under the most favorable conditions, but they were kept going night and day, and some of them maintained their schedules almost with the regularity of the early steamers. The Montezuma, the Patrick Henry, and the Southampton crossed from New York to Liverpool in fifteen days, and for years the Independence held the record of fourteen days and six hours. It remained for the Dreadnought, Captain Samuel Samuels, in 1859, to set the mark for packet ships to Liverpool at thirteen days and eight hours.
Meanwhile the era of the matchless clipper had arrived and it was one of these ships which achieved the fastest Atlantic passage ever made by a vessel under sail. The James Baines was built for English owners to be used in the Australian trade. She was a full clipper of 2515 tons, twice the size of the ablest packets, and was praised as "the most perfect sailing ship that ever entered the river Mersey." Bound out from Boston to Liverpool, she anchored after twelve days and six hours at sea.
There was no lucky chance in this extraordinary voyage, for this clipper was the work of the greatest American builder, Donald McKay, who at the same time designed the Lightning for the same owners. This clipper, sent across the Atlantic on her maiden trip, left in her foaming wake a twenty-four hour run which no steamer had even approached and which was not equaled by the fastest express steamers until twenty-five years later when the greyhound Arizona ran eighteen knots in one hour on her trial trip. This is a rather startling statement when one reflects