On her maiden passage Brilliant went out to Sydney in 78 days without clewing up her main royal from the Bay of Biscay to Sydney Heads. Down in the roaring forties she made three consecutive runs of 340, 345 and 338 miles by observation, a performance which I do not think any iron ship has ever beaten.
Her best homeward passage was 79 days to the Channel in 1888, but her wool passages were so regular that she was rarely allowed more than 85 days to catch the sales.
Brilliant was a specially handsome ship; painted black with a white under-body, and with a brass rail along the whole length of her topgallant bulwarks, she was always the acme of smartness, being known in Sydney as “Duthie’s yacht.”
Taking the average of 16 outward passages under Captain Davidson, we find Brilliant’s record to be 85 days, her rival Pericles had an average of 84 days for 10 passages; this was considerably helped by a very fine run of 71 days in 1886.
In 1888 Captain John Henderson took the Pericles for three voyages, leaving her to take the Samuel Plimsoll. He took the Pericles across the Pacific to San Francisco and made three passages home from the Golden Gate with wheat, his first being the best, 110 days to Falmouth.
Thompson’s sold Pericles to the Norwegians in 1904, whilst Brilliant was sold to the Italians in the following year. Brilliant, I believe, was broken up in Genoa about 10 or 12 years ago, but Pericles, until recently at any rate, was still washing about the seas disguised in the usual way as a barque.
“Loch Ryan.”
Loch Ryan was another 1200-ton ship, a favourite size with Messrs. Aitken & Lilburn. Though she managed to make the run to Melbourne in 78 days on her maiden passage, she was not as sharp-ended as her predecessors and was more of a carrier, her passages home being more often over 100 days than under.
She was more fortunate in her old age than most of her sisters, as she was bought by the Victorian Government and turned into a boys’ training ship, her name being changed to John Murray. For many years, until well into the late war in fact, she lay in Hobson’s Bay as spick and span as ever, occasionally making short cruises under sail for training purposes.
About the middle of the war, like many another gallant old windjammer, she was fitted out and sent to sea in the face of the German submarines and was wrecked in the Pacific.
“Loch Etive,” of Captain William Stuart and Joseph Conrad fame.
The Loch Etive, launched in November, 1877, had the honour of being commanded by Captain Stuart of Peterhead, for long the well-known skipper of the famous Tweed, and the still greater honour of having Mr. Joseph Conrad as one of her officers.
She also was a fuller ship and for some years Captain Stuart failed to get anything remarkable out of her, though he drove her unmercifully; but in 1892-3 she made two very good voyages.