CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAILING SHIP IN THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES.

I shall endeavour in this chapter to conclude the narrative of the large sailing ship, all of whose sails, excepting her triangular headsails and the staysails and the new shape which we have seen the mizzen take, are square, and carried athwart the mast. Neither the fore-and-aft rig, nor those hybrid developments of squaresail and fore-and-aft rig, will be considered until the following chapter, in order that our attention may not now be distracted from the older form, and also that we may be able presently to consider, without break of continuity, the story of that newer rig which had its origin during the sixteenth century.

In 1801 the Union Jack was modified by the introduction of a saltire for the Union of Ireland with Great Britain. The white, red and blue admirals, with their corresponding ensigns, continued. Thus the Red Ensign had not become yet the exclusive use of the Merchant Service nor the White Ensign of the Navy, but all three colours were in use to indicate the rank and place of flag-officers. At Trafalgar we fought under the White Ensign solely. After the practice had grown up of the whole fleet, for the sake of convenience, flying one colour, the three were in 1850 abolished, and the White Ensign became the colour of the Royal Navy.

One of the first war vessels to be laid down in the new century was the Caledonia, 205 feet long and of 2616 tons. This was in the year 1802, but she was not launched until six years later. Carrying 120 guns she was a first-rate, and was based on the design of the Commerce de Marseilles, which we mentioned in the last chapter. There is a model both of the Commerce de Marseilles and of the Caledonia in the Royal Naval College Museum, Greenwich. The latter was broken up only as recently as 1907. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century ships of the Royal Navy were painted with blue upperworks, bright yellow sides, and broad black strakes at the waterline. The interior was generally painted red.[107] But Nelson had the hulls of his ships painted black with a yellow strake along each tier of ports, but with black port-lids, and this chequer painting distinguished all men-of-war, both at Trafalgar and after. White was soon introduced as a substitute for the yellow. This white band has survived to this day on many of our biggest sailing ships, and is well seen in Mr. Charles Dixon’s sketch of the four-masted barque reproduced in Fig. 78.

Among the innovations which came into use during the early years of the nineteenth century were the lifeboat and the prototype of the modern rocket life-saving apparatus. In 1774 Captain (afterwards Admiral) Schank, while stationed at Boston, built the first craft that ever possessed a sliding keel. This invention was put into actual use by the English fleet during the wars in which our country was engaged at the beginning of the century. By its means those ships thus fitted were able to sail closer to the wind without making so much lee-way. They were made better on the helm, and they could take the ground with less possibility of damage. There is in the Greenwich Museum an excellent model of the 50-gun frigate Cynthia, fitted with these sliding keels in 1795.

The strenuous years that formed the beginning of the new century in which England was constantly at war, gradually increased the size of her Navy to the enormous total of 644 ships which was reached in 1813. When we mention that at the beginning of the present year, 1909, the British Navy, including certain ships not yet completed, did not exceed 517 warships of all kinds, one can readily realise how great had been the extension of the fleet, and, in consequence, how great an incentive to shipbuilding and the seafaring life had been given. But this number had as quickly diminished to 114 four years later, when the outlook of peace seemed bright and hopeful. In 1812 the unfortunate war broke out between the United States and Great Britain, and for another two years naval activity was renewed. What the immediate result of the American war had on the development of the sailing ship is not difficult to estimate. As regards English shipbuilding, owing to the great success of the American frigates and their superiority to our own vessels, a sudden wave of enthusiasm swept over the British naval authorities for frigates. In the panic, this was pushed to foolish extremes, and bigger ships were cut down and converted into frigate-shape. In America, the building of frigates of such unusual size first called the attention of naval architects to the advantages and possibilities of large vessels. It was thus that the way was paved for the coming of the early clippers in 1851.[108]

It is time now to refer to the powerful influence exercised over our naval architecture by Sir Robert Seppings. It was he who in 1804 introduced the round bow in place of the straight wall-like structure which had been inherited from the previous centuries. Similarly, instead of the square stern, he gave his ships a circular one. But more important still was the diagonal method of placing the timbers of a ship which he introduced in 1800. The advantage of this was increased strength and ability to resist the hogging strains, which the Egyptians also had to overcome.[109] A large model showing Seppings’ method of construction will be found in the Greenwich Museum. The system, while no doubt being efficacious in preventing the “working” of a ship’s component parts, must necessarily have added very considerably to her weight. It was about this time, too, that teak was used occasionally for the construction of ships. During the first quarter of the century whatever improvements were made in British naval architecture owed their origin almost entirely to the knowledge gained from the numerous prizes captured from the French. One of the finest ships ever built in France was the Sans Pareil, which we had taken from the enemy in 1794. She was of 2242 tons and carried 80 guns. (The reader will find a block-model of this ship in the Greenwich Museum). The influence which this vessel exercised over our naval architecture was not inconsiderable. So much admiration did she receive that as late as 1845 there was designed on similar lines and laid down at Devonport a British ship. She was never launched, however, as another Sans Pareil, but while on the stocks was altered, her length was increased, and she was eventually given the addition of a screw propeller, and thus launched in 1851.

The progress which had been made in the ships of the Royal Navy had its counterpart in the mercantile marine. Gradually through the centuries since the Crusades had opened up the Mediterranean to English trade our ancestors had acquired bigger and bigger ships for the purpose of carrying merchandise. The discovery of the West Indies, of North America, the Newfoundland Fisheries, and subsequently the founding of the East India Company, had step by step developed the ships which were used for purposes of commerce. Especially favourable for merchant shipping had been the East and West Indian trade. The voyages and discoveries made by Dampier, Anson and Cook increased still further the scope of English trade, and, consequently, the need for both ships and seafaring men became greater. Wars obviously arrested the progress already made, but by 1821 the tonnage of the shipping of the British Empire amounted to the significant sum of 2,560,203, in spite of the keen competition now made by the United States. The East India Company at the beginning of the nineteenth century occupied the position now held in the twentieth century by the principal companies owning the biggest liners to-day; that is to say, the largest and finest merchant ships belonged to them. And profiting by the monopoly which they owned, paying very handsome profits, they could afford to build their ships well and strong. Consequently it is not to be wondered that the East Indiamen from the commencement of the century down to the last of their race became historical for their building and capabilities. Fig. 70 shows the Newcastle, a well-known East Indiaman of the early part of the nineteenth century.

During the eighteenth century brigs of about a couple of hundred tons had been used for coasting trade, and especially for carrying coals from Shields and Newcastle: but with the advent of the steam collier the days of these ships were numbered. The illustration in Fig. 71 is from the painting by Turner in the National Gallery entitled Spithead: Boat’s Crew recovering an Anchor. It was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1809, and is here included in order to provide a contemporary picture of the full-rigged ships of the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Not till about 1810 was iron introduced for knees, breast-hooks and pillars, although the use of iron had been tried for the whole structure in a small boat as far back as 1787. The real introduction of building ships of iron occurred in 1829, yet it was not till the ’forties that opposition was entirely swept aside and iron came to be recognised as a suitable material for ships.

But we have digressed from the period before us. If the East India trade was a monopoly, commerce with the West Indies was unfettered by any such condition. Not unnaturally, therefore, competition was keen on this route, and as a result a number of excellent cargo-carrying ships were built, able to endure the trying conditions of the Atlantic without being deficient in the virtue of speed. The illustration in Fig. 72, taken from a print dated 1820, in the British Museum, will give some idea of the appearance of a contemporary West Indiaman. Gradually the similarity between purely mercantile and exclusively naval ships was disappearing, and we shall see presently how this gulf was widened still further.

Sir Robert Seppings was succeeded by Captain Sir William Symonds, R.N., who was Surveyor to the Royal Navy from 1832 to 1847, years full of importance in the history of the sailing ship. We have referred more than once to the slavish copying of French models which had been a feature of our naval architecture. This was now to end. Just as before, and many times after, England had shown herself to possess a genius not so much for inventiveness as for improving on the ideas of others, so now she began to design and build vessels that could not be surpassed even by the French themselves. During Symonds’ régime the golden age of the wooden walls of England was reached. It was he who was responsible for the design of such ships as the Vernon (fifty guns), the Queen, and about one hundred and eighty others. Seaworthiness combined with speed were their outstanding virtues, and these he obtained by improving their underwater lines and making them less heavy and clumsy.[110] Internally the ships were constructed so as to provide more room and air. Symonds completed the work of Seppings in getting rid of the mediæval stern which had lingered with certain modifications for so long a period. Instead of the circular, he gave his ships an elliptical stern, and devised a system whereby not only were the different spars of one ship interchangeable, but the spars of different ships and different classes of ships. There is a very fine large model of his Queen in the Greenwich Museum which has been rigged with the greatest regard to accuracy in every possible detail, so perhaps in studying her we shall get as good an example of Symonds’ ships as we can desire. Built in 1839, this 110-gun ship had a tonnage of 3104. Her length was 204 feet 2½ inches, her breadth 60 feet 0½ inch, her depth 23 feet 9 inches, and she carried a crew of 900. She had been laid down as early as 1833, and her name had originally been the Royal Frederick, but after the accession of Queen Victoria she was named Queen at her launching. Later, in 1859, she was given the addition of a screw propeller.

In the Greenwich model she is seen as a sailing ship pure and simple, with three decks. As to her rigging I have had the pleasure of talking with more than one of those who served in this, the first three-decker that was launched during the reign of Victoria. One of the first points that strikes one is that the Queen is seen to have relinquished the historic hempen cable for the chain. The rounded bow instead of the square shape already alluded to is immediately obvious. The yard of the spritsail athwart the bowsprit still remains, although this sail remained longer in the merchant service than in the Navy, being used but rarely in the latter at this late period. She possesses a bowsprit in three parts, i.e., bowsprit proper, jib-boom and flying-boom. To encounter the downward strain the ship by now has also a dolphin-striker. The Queen carried stun’sails (studding-sails) of course, square in shape, which were often weighted down by shot at the outboard end. Many merchant ships of that time, however, had them cut not square but triangular, and these were then set, not as the modern yacht sets her spinnaker with the apex of the triangle at the top, but at the bottom. In the edition of “Falconer’s Marine Dictionary” revised by Burney, and published three years before the Queen was laid down, he speaks of and illustrates stun’sails only for the courses, topsails, and t’gallant sails. Royal studding sails most probably never were seen, although I notice that E. W. Cooke, R.A., whose life was covered by the period between 1811 and 1880, who was one of the most faithful marine artists of the time, whose father was well known as an engraver of Turner’s pictures, who himself was also at one time largely engaged on similar work, has an illustration showing a British frigate with both t’gallant and royal stuns’ls. It seems unlikely that so accurate an artist as Cooke should make such a mistake, although the weight of evidence is decidedly against him.

Falconer says that lower studding sails were used on the main and fore. The booms were generally hooked on to the chains by a gooseneck, and kept steady by a guy. Topmast and t’gallant studding sails were spread along the foot by booms which slid out from the yards. This is well seen in the Queen and many another model which the reader will no doubt have examined. In a similar manner the head of the sail had small sliding yards for the same purpose. The sail on the mizzen mast now called a driver or spanker was chiefly used when on a wind, being usually stowed when running. The boom will be found to project very far over the stern, even to an almost incredible extent, yet this is quite accurate for the period. As is still the custom, the gaff was kept up when the sail was not in use, contrary to the practice on a modern cutter-rigged vessel. The origin of this sail we have seen develop from the old lateen, and modified in its transition by Dutch influence. Now, one characteristic of the Dutchman was his love of brails, and even when the boom was added and the diagonal sprit taken away from this sail on the little fore-and-afters the brailing system clung tenaciously to the sail. We have a very good instance of this in the mainsail of the bawley (see Fig. 86), which has neither boom nor sprit, but which can be brailed up all the same. The barge has a sprit but no boom, and stows her sail by brailing. When this sail came to be used as the driver on square-rigged ships and the boom was also added, using a loose-footed sail, the brails still survived as we see them on the Queen. In furling the driver, therefore, the brail hauled the sail to the mast: then in order to make a neat job of it a kind of clew-garnet drew the leach end of the foot diagonally across the sail to the mast also. This will be noticed in many contemporary prints of this period and earlier. I have talked with one old sailor who remembers, when the ship had got into the favourable trade-wind, not merely setting every stitch of canvas the vessel had to put up, but even stepping the masts of the ship’s boats lying on deck and hoisting the sails of these boats to drive the ship along yet faster still. The reader may remember that Nelson’s Victory, one of the fastest line-of-battle ships of her day, went into action at Trafalgar with studding sails set.

We have already shown that it was not long in the new century before iron was introduced in connection with shipbuilding, though it was some time before it was able to take the place of wood for the hulls of ships. By the ’thirties steam was becoming gradually to be reckoned with as a serious menace to sail, and in the Navy the Tartarus, of four guns and a tonnage of 523, was classed as a paddle sloop. Nevertheless, paddle-wheel steamers attached to the fleet were regarded with scorn and spoken of as “dirty old smoke-jacks.” As a distinguished naval officer and explorer, happily still with us, Admiral Moresby, says: “There was obviously no future for this type in the service, and sails would continue to waft us as they had done from the beginning. So we thought; but one day a long, low craft, barque-rigged, and possessing no outward sign of a steamer but the funnel, joined the fleet. She was the Rattler, the first man-of-war screw-ship. We viewed her with interest but did not realise her significance. Pitted against her in every trial was the Alecto—a paddle-sloop of equal tonnage and horse-power—the Rattler an easy first in all circumstances. Finally they were lashed stern to stern in a ‘pull devil, pull baker’ grip, and ordered to put forth all their strength to see which could tow the other—a strange scene which I well remember. It was a calm day, with a long, heaving swell. Alecto’s paddles were revolving and churning the foam like a whale in a flurry, while a slight ripple under the Rattler’s stern alone showed that there was power at work.... Alecto, in spite of frantic struggles, was dragged slowly astern, and the era of the screw had begun.”[111] The same author relates an amusing instance as showing the manner in which steam was contemplated by the old school. A certain captain was bringing his ship into harbour under steam and sail. As he ran up he shortened sail and came to anchor in handsome style, but unfortunately forgot that his engines were still going, with a result that could only spell disaster!

There was between the naval ships of the ’forties and those of the time of Charles II. a similarity a hundredfold closer than that which can be found to exist between the former and those of King Edward’s ships to-day. With a change in ships came a change in personnel. “The officers of the early ’forties,” writes Admiral Moresby, “with few exceptions, were content to be practical sailors only. They had nothing to do with the navigation of the ship or the rating of the chronometers. That was entirely in the hands of the master, and no other had any real experience or responsibility in the matter. For example—I recall a captain, whose ship was at Spithead. He was ordered by signal to go to the assistance of a ship on shore at the back of the Isle of Wight. In reply he hoisted ‘Inability. The master is ashore.’ He was asked, ‘Are the other officers aboard?’ and signalled ‘Yes.’ But to the repeated order, ‘Proceed immediately,’ he again hoisted ‘Inability,’ and remained entrenched in this determination until a pilot was sent to assist him.”

But to come back to the merchant service, to the old East Indiamen “with their stately tiers of sails and splendid crews of trained seamen,” although they were much finer in their lines and less unhandy than the vessels in the Royal Navy of this period, their rig was in most respects akin to the latter.[112] They carried three courses—foresail, mainsail and cro’jack, three topsails (in each of which there were three or four reefs), and three t’gallant sails and royals, or twelve sails on the three masts. The fore-and-aft sails were: on the bowsprit and jib-boom, a fore topmast staysail, an inner jib and outer jib and flying jib. Below the bowsprit was set on the spritsail yard, what the reader has been accustomed through these chapters to know as the “spritsail,” but which in the nineteenth century, even though triangular headsails were more in evidence than before, still continued, though known as a “water sail,” or “bull-driver.” Leslie, in his “Old Sea Wings, Ways and Words in the Days of Oak and Hemp,” says that spritsails were not only used when going free but when on a wind. The reef-points were placed diagonally so that when reefed that part of the sail nearest to the sea was narrower than the upper part. Two circular holes were cut, one in each corner, so that when the ship plunged her bows into a sea the water could run out and not split the canvas. Mr. Bullen says that this sail was not of much use, nor could he understand why it was carried at all, as it always had to be furled as soon as the ship began to pitch a little. However, this last and final relic of mediævalism has at last departed for good, although it dated back for its origin to the artemon of classical times. Even when the sprit topmast had disappeared, the sprit topsail was retained for some time by placing it below the bowsprit instead of above, but further forward of the spritsail proper.

Between the fore and main masts of the East Indiamen were the main topmast staysail, main topgallant staysail and main royal staysail. Between the main and mizzen were the mizzen topmast staysail, and mizzen t’gallant staysail, but a royal was seldom set on this mast. Abaft came the spanker or driver, often with the addition on the after-leach of a ring-tail. Stun’sles, too, were used. But in those days although these East Indiamen carried more hands than a sailing ship of like size does to-day, yet every night at sunset all light sails were taken off her and the ship was snugged down for the night. Still the old bluff-bowed East Indiaman had had its day when the young Republic of the United States, encouraged by the opportunity which freedom from war now afforded, introduced on the sea ships with clipper-bow that literally cleft the waves instead of hitting them and retarding the passage of the hull through the water. With a freedom of mind which has ever characterised the American, both as a nation and an individual, the marine architects on the other side of the Atlantic threw convention still further to the winds by modifying the design of the stern in such a way that instead of squatting and holding the dead water the ship slid through it cleanly with a minimum of resistance. Possessing unlimited supplies of timber, they were in a position to build ships at a far lower rate than we in this country. In fact, so much was this the case that in England between the years 1841 and 1847 no fewer than forty shipbuilders went bankrupt in Sunderland alone. The one object of the American designer was to build a ship that should sail every other craft off the seas and so obtain the maximum of trade-carrying. Besides the improvement in bow and stern they lengthened the ship till she became five and six times longer than in breadth. This gave an opportunity of adding a fourth mast to the ship and to carry more sails. The sails themselves were improved in cut, being no longer mere bags to hold the wind, but of a “close-textured, dazzlingly-white canvas.” In exact contradistinction to the East Indiamen, these Yankee ships did not reef down in anticipation of the gale that was to follow hours after, but took in sail reluctantly. The part played by the American clippers during the period that saw the close of the great wars and the beginning of the American Civil War is one of vast importance to the development of the sailing ship of any size. Even when steamers began to cross the Atlantic in 1840, these wonderful clippers were able to cross in about a fortnight. In every way superior to the old cotton-ships running between New York and Havre in the early ’thirties, the clippers of the ’forties and ’fifties were seaworthy as well as fast. One of the most famous was the Flying Cloud built in 1851, which performed the sensational run of 427 knots in twenty-four hours when on a passage from New York to San Francisco. The Sovereign of the Seas did even better still.

But yet again the English genius for improving on other peoples’ ideas showed itself at a critical point in the history of shipbuilding. Shipbuilders and architects put their heads together and decided to meet the American on his own terms. If he had built clippers that had flown across the sea, it was their duty to build something that would fly faster still; so a new chapter in British shipping begins, and headed by Mr. Richard Green, the famous Blackwall shipbuilder and shipowner, England built for herself the real thing in clippers, quite early in the ’sixties. The Challenger was in 1850 laid down in Messrs. Green’s yard to sail against the American Challenge, in an ocean race from China, and won. Besides Messrs. Green, other British firms entered the contest and built splendid clippers, amongst whom may be mentioned Messrs. J. Thompson & Co., of Aberdeen, who founded the well-known line of Aberdeen clippers; Messrs. Steele, of Greenock, and Messrs. Scott, of Greenock. Built of teak planking with iron frames, these new vessels were made to last, unlike the American ships, whose life was quite short, built as they were merely out of soft stuff. The enormous spars which the new British ships were given caused no little surprise at that time, but they managed to carry them none the less. The Great Republic, launched in the early ’fifties, was the first vessel to carry double topsails. Owned and built in America, she was 305 feet long, 53 feet broad, 30 feet deep, and had a tonnage of 3400. She carried also double t’gallant sails as well as staysails, and was barque rigged, having 4500 square yards of canvas. So perfectly was she rigged that she was handled by a crew of 100. She was chartered by the French Government to carry troops to the Crimea,[113] had four decks and was strengthened with iron lattice-work.

But about the year 1853, we enter upon the final and most perfect stage of the sailing ship. Spurred on by competition and necessity, builders and architects had been compelled to put forth their best and to get right away from the old-fashioned ruts. So now wood at last was to give place to iron as the material for constructing sailing ships as well as steamers. In this year Messrs. Scott of Greenock built the iron sailing ship Lord of the Isles which, three years later, beat two of the American crack clippers, though nearly double her size, in the race from Foo Choo to London. The adoption of iron meant a saving of about a third of the weight of the hull; moreover, as ships became longer, increased structural strength was found to be lacking in wood.[114] As we saw in the time of Charles II., English oak had been getting gradually so scarce as to put us at a serious disadvantage in competition with such a well-wooded region as North America. The gold rush to California in the ’fifties, and to Australia, gave a tremendous impetus to shipping. The reader must recollect that by this time there were no railways across the American continent, and so when the inhabitants of the Eastern States of America decided to go west, they could only go viâ Cape Horn. This was the chance for the clipper ship to show her superiority to her predecessors, and in these voyages she soon showed that speed meant money.

But we must come now to the influence which the China tea trade had on the sailing ship. I understand that tea is a commodity which, as long as it is kept in a ship’s hold, quickly loses its delicate flavour and quality. Consequent on this, and the desire on the part of London merchants to obtain each year the first portion of the new tea crop at the earliest possible moment, it was to their interest to encourage a quick passage. Therefore enormous prizes were held out as an inducement, and the keenest rivalry existed between different ships in the race home. Solent regattas, the international race from Dover to Heligoland, even the famous race a few years ago across the North Atlantic look ridiculous when one thinks of the excitement that reigned on board during a race all the way from China to the River Thames. For a long time the American ships had been successful. Before the introduction of iron such craft as the Sea Witch, a clipper built in 1842, of 907 tons register, and carrying 1100 tons of China tea,[115] caused tremendous jealousy among the British skippers. In 1853 the Challenge had sailed from Canton to Deal in 105 days, though in the same year the English Chrysolite clipper sailed from Canton to Liverpool in 106 days. For a few years the Americans had the best of the competition; but before the ’fifties had ended the China trade had been won by British clippers, and the American Civil War of 1861-1865 dealt a fatal blow to their clippers as rivals to ours. But none the less those keen races to England did not diminish. The rivalry which had existed between nation and nation now continued between ship and ship, between skipper and skipper, shipowner and shipowner. This led to the finest development of sailing ships, and as long as the word remains in the English language, so long will these clipper races remain famous alike for the skill as for the sporting instinct in the crews that got them home in record time.

Among the most celebrated ships of the ’sixties were the Black Ball liners Flying Cloud and Scomberg; the Aberdeen clipper liners Thermopylæ, Thyatera; whilst among the China clippers were the Sir Lancelot, which was lost in the Bay of Bengal in a cyclone in 1896, the Black Adder and the Cutty Sark. Other famous tea clippers were the Ariel, Taeping, Serica, Fiery Cross and Taitsing. The first two of these will be found in Fig. 73, in which they are seen off the Lizard on September 6, 1866. They started together with Serica from Foo-choo on May 30, and lost sight of each other till they reached the English Channel. Taeping arrived in the London Dock (the same day she had passed the Lizard) at 9·45 P.M., while Ariel arrived at the East India Dock at 10·15 P.M., or with half an hour’s difference after racing for over three months on end. Serica arrived only a few hours later. In the thrilling picture before us, these two ships are seen with stun’s’ls and staysails set. The foretopmast staysail in both ships is stowed since the foresail with its projecting stun’s’l would otherwise blanket and render it useless. The improved lines at bow and stern to which we referred just now are here seen at their best. Two of the fastest sailing vessels ever built were the Thermopylæ and the Sir Lancelot. The former especially, had a marvellous capacity for speed. In one day, in the year 1870, she made a run of 330 knots, or 380 statute miles, being an average of 16 miles an hour. The Sir Lancelot, for seven consecutive days, kept up an average of over 300 miles a day. It was the Thermopylæ, which in 1869 was the first tea ship home, having made the passage in 91 days, but the Sir Lancelot presently eclipsed even this wonderful passage in 89 days, being the fastest clipper ever built.

The Cutty Sark was not as fast as the Thermopylæ and Sir Lancelot, but in 1872, although she had her rudder carried away on the voyage, she ran home from Shanghai in 122 days. The Thermopylæ was a composite clipper of 947 tons register. She was 210 feet long by 36 feet beam and 21 feet deep. She was designed by Mr. Waymouth for Messrs. Thompson & Co. The Sir Lancelot was, like the Thermopylæ, a composite ship, and was built by Messrs. Steel, of Greenock, for Mr. James McCunn. She was 886 tons register, 197 feet long, 33 feet 7 inches broad and 21 feet deep. When fully laden with 300 tons of ballast and 1430 tons of tea, she drew 18 feet 7 inches of water forward and 2 inches more aft. Her complement was 30, and when in racing trim she spread more than an acre of canvas. Her best run in twenty-four hours was of 354 miles. The article contributed recently by Mr. Bullen to the periodical already mentioned set on foot an interesting correspondence, in which some valuable facts were brought out by those who had actually served on these clipper-ships. And since the days of man are but three score years and ten, and before many more decades have run all those who went to sea in these magnificent ships will have passed away, I have thought it worth while to preserve here some of their recollections. The authors having adopted pseudonyms, I am unable to give their names.

One correspondent states that he remembers to have sailed 368 miles in one day, and 1000 miles in three days. One ship made a passage from the Start to the Ridge Lightship (30 miles from the mouth of the Hooghly) in 86 days. This was the Northampton, owned by Messrs. Soames and Co., of London. But other ships, including Messrs. Green’s Alnwick Castle, did it in 69 days. On September 23, 1863, the Hotspur arrived at Madras in 79 days.

The illustration in Fig. 74 is taken from a model in the South Kensington Museum, and represents the iron clipper Stonehouse. It will be noticed she is ship-rigged; she was launched at Pallion in 1866. She has a full poop and topgallant forecastle, with considerable accommodation for carrying first-class passengers and cargo. Her displacement at load line is 2600 tons; her actual tonnage worked out at 1298; her length 220·5 feet, breadth 37 feet, depth 22·66 feet, and her load draught 19·25 feet. It will be noticed that she has double topsails, and her lines will give one an adequate idea of the famous clippers of the ’sixties.

The effect of the opening of the Suez Canal in the year 1870 was to place most of the trade to the East into steamers, which by now had become the deadliest enemy of the sailing ship. It would have been impossible to have carried on the trade in frozen food to-day in these fine old ships, and sentiment had necessarily to give way to the exacting dictates of commerce; but for a long time before 1870, and for some time after opening the canal, the traffic to India, Australia, and New Zealand was carried on in sailing ships, and the same keen rivalry to make the best passage continued. The Atlantic emigrant traffic also continued to be carried in sailing ships; but the ceaseless progress of the big steamship lines, and the competition which lowered the fares for steerage passengers, drove still another nail in the sailing ship’s coffin. And yet, in regard to speed, these ships would sail to the east or the west with a regularity equal to most modern tramp steamers.

The beautiful illustration in Fig. 75 is from a photograph of the celebrated Macquarie. She is an iron barque, and was built in 1875 by Messrs. R. & H. Green of London. Her registered tonnage is 1977, her length 269·8 feet, her beam 40·1 feet, and her depth 23·7. In her day she was a famous beauty, but now she has changed her name and nationality. Known as the Fortuna she is registered at Sandefjord and flies the Norwegian flag. The reader will remark the old-fashioned white band introduced soon after the Battle of Trafalgar, and mentioned early in the present chapter.

The Desdemona, seen in Fig. 76, was built in 1875 by Messrs. W. H. Potter & Co. of Liverpool. Constructed of iron, she is ship-rigged and has a registered tonnage of 1564, and is British owned. Her length is 242 feet, beam 37·7 feet, and depth 22·9 feet. As she is running before the wind, her headsails have been stowed. As the reader is probably aware, ships usually when “running their easting down” haul up a point or two, so as to bring the wind on the quarter, in order that all sails may be allowed to draw and none allowed to blanket the other. Thus after running a certain distance with the wind on one side they gybe her and bring the wind on the other quarter. The photograph was taken recently off Cape Horn.

As the largest British sailing ship of the year 1890 we may mention the Liverpool, of 3330 tons register. Ship-rigged and built of iron with steel beams she was given two decks, whilst her length came to 333·2 feet, breadth 47·9 feet, and depth 26·5 feet. The five-master France, built on the Clyde for a Bordeaux firm in 1890, with the large tonnage of 3784, must also be mentioned as a famous barque of the ’nineties. Her length is 344 feet, beam 49 feet, and she was built of steel throughout, masts and yards as well. So great a capacity do her holds possess that she is capable of carrying 6100 tons of cargo. Another large French sailing vessel is the Dunkerque, measuring 105 metres long and 13·9 metres wide. Her sail area is no less than 4550 square metres. The illustration in Fig. 77 is from a photograph of the Olive Bank. Here she is seen with the following sails reading from forward to aft: On the bowsprit she carries flying jib, outer jib, inner jib, and fore topmast staysail. On her foremast she has foresail, lower and upper fore-topsails, lower and upper fore t’gallant sails, and fore royal. On her main she has mainsail, lower and upper main topsails, lower and upper main t’gallants and main royal. On her mizzen she has besides her course, double topsails and double t’gallants, the royal being seen half furled. On the jigger she carries a driver (or spanker) with topsail. She is a four-masted barque, and her registered tonnage is 2824. Built in 1892 of steel by Messrs. Mackie & Thomson at Glasgow, she is 326 feet long, 43 feet broad, 24½ feet deep, and is British owned. The illustration in Fig. 78 and in colour on the cover is at once realistic and symbolical, with the four-funnelled Mauretania four miles astern chasing the poor sailing ship from the seas which for so long a time she has adorned as a creature of infinite beauty and an eternal joy to those who have eyes to see and emotions to be thrilled.

Our last illustration before we say good-bye to the large sailing ship is the Queen Margaret in Fig. 79. This is a steel, four-masted barque. She was built in 1893 by Messrs. A. McMillan & Son, Ltd., at Dumbarton. Her registered tonnage is 2144, her length 275 feet, her beam 42·2 feet, and her depth 24 feet. The photograph was taken only the other day from a passing vessel off Cape Horn. Most modern sailing ships of any size are now four masters; but, omitting entirely the large seven-masted schooners of America, there are a few square-rigged ships with five masts. When that is so they are named thus, reading from forward to aft: foremast, mainmast, middle, mizzen, and jigger. It is a circumstance all too true that, owing to the enormous advance of steam, both seamen and seamanship are nowadays hard to find in our country. The best deep-sea sailing-men are the Germans, who own the biggest five-masted sailing ships afloat. The Potosi, for instance, with five masts and belonging to Hamburg, is one of the very largest sailing ships ever launched. It is an undeniable fact that this ship has made eleven consecutive voyages between Hamburg and Peru in the average time of five months and twenty days, including stay in harbour, making an average rate of travel while at sea of eleven knots per hour, and it is not surprising to hear that this now stands as the world’s record for the deep-sea sailing ship. The largest sailing ship afloat is also a German five-master, the Preussen. Built of steel in 1902 by Messrs. J. C. Tecklenborg at Geestemünde, she is 407·8 feet long, 53·6 feet broad, and 27·1 feet deep, and is ship-rigged. Between this ultra-modern craft and that quaint prehistoric specimen we saw from the Egyptian jar in Fig. 3 what little connection is there, save for the one solitary fact that both depend on water for their buoyancy and on wind for their propulsion! For not only has wood disappeared as the material for ribs and skin, but chain is now used for topsail sheets and slings. (Slings are used to suspend the lower yards, the upper yards being sent down when necessary). Spars and masts are made of steel, wire has taken the place of much of the rope that was used. Shrouds and stays are of wire, rigging screws are used instead of lanyards and of dead-eyes. All the brace-pendants except the lower ones are of wire, even to the royal and skysail braces, so that the greater part of the rigging of a ship is now done in harbour ashore by skilled mechanics. The result is that “marlin-spike seamanship” is fast disappearing and getting under way to join the spritsail, oak and hemp of other days. Only among the somewhat diverse class of fishermen, yachtsmen, and the seafaring men from Scandinavia and up the Baltic, does it survive with any outward signs of life at all.

We have seen the beginning of the bowsprit with its enormous rake to carry the artemon; we have watched it continue through the Tudors and Stuarts as practically an additional mast steeved at a considerable angle. Gradually the angle has got smaller and smaller until now in the twentieth century in the latest ships, it is much more nearly horizontal. We saw this spar become divided into two, and later into three parts—flying jib-boom, jib-boom, and bowsprit. To-day, though it is made of iron or steel, it has gone back to be of one piece. We witnessed the introduction of bonnets; they also have gone except in Norway, Norfolk, and the Thames barge. The studding sails which Raleigh spoke of are scarcely ever seen, although in the ’sixties they were prominent features of the clippers when getting every ounce of power out of the ship. No doubt their awkwardness, and the necessity of having a first-class helmsman to prevent the ship swerving suddenly off her course, had most to do with their departure. Convenience, too, in handling so much canvas up the mast led to the introduction of the topsails and topgallants, being cut in half and used double, though on the mizzen a single topsail is frequent. The gradual introduction of skysails during the last hundred years has continued till they are found often on fore, main, and mizzen, while the staysails, which were such characteristic features of the eighteenth century Dutchmen, are now used freely on most of the stays. Nor has the change been confined to the spars, sails, and rigging. Some of the Gallic vessels of Cæsar’s time—so he records—were fitted with iron cables. Then, as the reader knows, rope came in, and hemp remained for centuries until, roughly, 1800. The introduction of the chain, then, has been merely a revival. Lead sheathing was used by the ancients, forgotten for many centuries until the Spanish restored its use in the fifteenth century, and the English in the sixteenth. It was forgotten again until the seventeenth century, when it was introduced afresh. That was another revival. The Romans used bronze nails, and we have revived those again. The Greeks invented the schooner bow, as we saw in Fig. 13. It was forgotten for centuries again and re-introduced, as we saw in the seal of Dam in Fig. 40. Still another revival. In yachts, the last few years have seen the introduction of a reefing gear for furling both mainsail and headsails. The Chinese have had the former for centuries. Quite lately the fashion has come in to build yachts with double-ended “canoe” sterns. That, too, is but a revival of the old Viking shape—roughly. The reader will remember that in the years following the coming of William the Conqueror the tendency was for the ship to have terrific sheer, so that instead of being long and straight she was almost semi-circular. Gradually, century by century, this absurd sheer has disappeared, though reluctantly, until to-day the most modern deep-sea sailing ships have practically no sheer considering their length, as the reader will see from the photographs of the modern ships in this chapter.

What and where the next revival will be—who knows? Perhaps some day, when all the coal has been burnt and all the oil extracted from the ground, both engines and motors will be banished, and a revival of sailing power will be made. One cannot tell. But as to the immediate future of the big sailing ship two considerations arise on two widely different points, each of which demands attention. The first is the Panama Canal, to be opened in 1915, though this actual date may be delayed. Will it deal the last and most cruel blow of all by driving away those fine white-hulled sailing ships one sees sometimes bound from South America? Like the opening of the Suez Canal, will the piercing of the Panama Isthmus mean that, by enabling steamships to shorten their voyage and its cost to South America, Cape Horn will no longer be rounded by the sailing ship? That is one subject for consideration. The other is the effect that the installation of the motor will have. Coasters with auxiliary power are now becoming common. In the opinion of experts, ocean-going vessels of 700 tons can be fitted with motors of sufficient power. A three-masted fore-and-aft schooner was recently built in North Wales for the coasting trade fitted with an auxiliary motor. The vessel has a dead-weight carrying capacity of 200 tons, and the experiment has been found eminently successful. In towing charges and independence of weather she will be found to be cheaper even than a small steamer. A company was formed last autumn in London for the purpose of building barges propelled by paraffin oil motors with auxiliary sails, and such barges having a capacity of carrying 300 tons of cargo have been used on the Continent for some years. Time alone, therefore, can tell whether we have seen the last and final stage of the sailing ship, or whether we are about to see the dawn of a new development of her usefulness.