all time, and knowing too that every man on the ship took the risks gladly, and applauded his daring. as racers, or "full bloods " they were called, capable of 100-day passage. Such were Taeping, Serica, Ariel, Hallowe'en, Salamis, Blackadder, and the famous Thermopylae. It was not so very long, this period of the famous tea clippers, for before the year 1870 the steamers had made their appearance, only twenty years after the building of the first British ship designed purely for speed, the Aberdeen clipper. It is said that the tall clipper ships of America gave the original idea for these, as the American clippers were determined to compete for all the great trades of the world, had already made successful ventures into the Chinese tea trade, and seemed likely to carry all before them. But the first Aberdeen clipper was quickly followed by a score of others. Not only the great magnates among the London shipowners, but many of far smaller means, retired skippers most of them, who had saved money and started in a small way with one or two ships, were all alike bitten with the desire to own a own a "thoroughbred" racer a desire half sporting, wholly commercial, and see if they could win what the whole shipping world considered as the blue ribbon of the sea. In the last days of the sailing fleet, before the power of steam ended the "Great Ship Race," there were about sixty regular sailing ships in the China trade which carried British colours; but of these not more than a dozen were considered thoroughbred bow lines perfect, but shrewdly In the autumn of 1868 Thermopylae broke the record on her maiden voyage from the Thames to Melbourne, and when the news reached home, a certain shipowner, Captain John Willis, better known as "White Hat "Willis, firmly resolved to build a clipper that would beat her. He owned amongst other ships The Tweed, which he considered to be the fastest ship ever built, though she was too large for the tea trade; and his idea was that the lines of The Tweed should be taken off and used as a guide in the design of his new ship. Captain Willis was a mixture of expert, enthusiast, and hardheaded Scotsman. The man to whom he pinned his faith for the execution of this project was a very remarkable person, one Hercules Linton, as determined as Jock Willis, as keen and clear-sighted, possessed of a great gift which he could neither expound nor impart, but believing in himself as firmly as Jock Willis believed in him. This young designer had a partner named Scott, and Scott & Linton had but lately started shipbuilding at the Woodyard, Dumbarton. Willis took Hercules Linton to see his favourite The Tweed in dry dock, and without hesitation Linton pronounced her in which shipbuilders were specially busy and in keen rivalry as to who should produce the finest clipper ship for the tea trade. No less than a dozen clippers were laid down, swift and beautiful rivals of the Cutty Sark in the days to come. criticised her stern as too barrel- at work, for 1869 was a year shaped and lacking in power. He decided that the new clipper should have a squarer stern frame, and having himself a high admiration for the Firth of Forth fishing-boats, which were famed throughout the kingdom for their speed and seaworthiness, he managed to incorporate their most valuable qualities in his design for the new clipper's bottom. "It is easy enough for a designer to recognise certain merits in other designs, but to mould them into a homogeneous whole requires not only skill and experience, but that elusive factor which is called genius. In this moulding together of the best points in The Tweed and the Buckhaven fishing-boat, and the inspirations of his own brain, Hercules Linton was supremely successful. The result left nothing lacking. The Cutty Sark had good looks, her design was perfectly balanced, and if her lines gave every indication of exceptional speed, they more than hinted at her exceptional power, a quality in which she far surpassed the rest of the tea fleet. She was all ship,' as the expression goes. Yet the Cutty Sark was the sharpest of all the China clippers." An old shipwright, who is still living, and whose claim to fame is that he built the port quarter of the Cutty Sark, declares that in the opinion of every tradesman who worked on her, the Cutty Sark was a class job, his own conviction being that hers were the bonniest lines he had ever seen, and beat all the famous Steele designs. She was only the sixth ship of the young firm of Scott & Linton, who looked to make their name with her; and great was the excitement in the new yard at Dumbarton when news came down there that a rival tea clipper was being laid down in Hall's famous yard at Aberdeen, intended to be an out-and-out "full blood," with a tonnage closely approximating to that of the Cutty Sark. This was the Caliph, Hall's 263rd ship, fully expected to be first favourite for the "Great Ship Race,' with more length and less depth than Cutty Sark, and designed to be specially fast in light winds. But alas for high ex She was built under special survey, and a great deal of secrecy was used about the pectations! plans, the builders being very was thatanxious that nothing should leak out which might be taken advantage of by the Glasgow and Greenock yards, then hard All her history "On her second voyage the Caliph mysteriously disappeared in the China Seas, and it was believed at the time that she had been captured by pirates." Cutty Sark had iron lower masts, lower yards, and bowsprit, the rest of her spars being of Oregon pine. She was tremendously square-rigged and was indeed more heavily sparred and spread a greater sail-area than any other ship in the tea trade-although Spindrift boasted the largest mainsail. She was essentially a heavyweather flyer, and the more it blew the more she liked it. This her skippers all proved, to the delight of most, to the dismay of one. Mr Lubbock gives scale plans of her lines, midship section, and sail-area, and in an Appendix will be found the scantlings and the spar measurements not only of Cutty Sark, but of her best-known rivals among the tea and wool clippers. Even to the uninitiated there is a particular delight and stimulation in these details, described by an expert. A book that is written down to us can never give the same lift to the imagination as the unadorned record of experience speaking the language belonging to the craft. To the very dullest of the uninitiated surely there comes some flash of intelligence from a statement like this : "In Cutty Sark's sail plan a spencer gaff will be noticed. This is a heavy-weather sail, hardly ever used except when a ship is hove to in a gale of wind. The Cutty Sark was never hove to when racing; thus the spencer was of very little use to her." Take this in conjunction with a statement which occurs later in the narrative : 66 Some men lack courage in the handling of ships. One or two of the Cutty Sark's skippers were afraid of her— afraid to let her go in hard winds; and the little clipper seemed to know it as she snatched at every opportunity to run away with them, just as if she had a sense of humour. But those two fearless drivers, Wallace and Woodget, both realised the extraordinary capacity which she possessed to stand hard driving, and boldly took every advantage of it. Woodget, indeed, never hove her to in all his ten years of command. . He fitted wire braces and sheets, and rove double sets of bunt lines; went aloft himself, and, having satisfied himself as to the state of her gear, was ready to drive her through anything. On more than one occasion, when he had been carrying on hard, and had at last decided that the royals must come in, the sails, even new ones, were cut through whilst being hauled up owing to the pressure of the wind. 66 Such a man could do anything with a willing vessel like the Cutty Sark. A spoke or two steered her; a boy could keep her straight on her course even when running in a big following sea." "The Cutty Sark was a wonderful runner: she was never ... pooped and kept wonderfully centre, over which a heavy dry aft. I never hove her to, brass lamp swings from the and always ran eyerything out," ridge beam of the skylight... declared Captain Woodget, who The famous clipper, both aloft, knew well that most of the on deck, and below, was fitted clippers were very ticklish ships up like a millionaire's yacht." to handle in a big following Her figurehead was carved by the gifted F. Hellyer, and was considered a masterpiece. It represented Nannie, the beautiful witch of Burns' poem, with her long black hair flying in the wind, and her arm stretched out in pursuit of Tam o'Shanter. It was the custom to put a long horse's tail in her hand when the ship was in port. Tam o' Shanter himself, on his grey mare Meg, was to be seen riding along the clipper's quarter, whilst the witches, in very scanty attire, were shown dancing in great abandon behind Nannie on the scroll-work of the Cutty's bow. In the height of her fame, when her owner was so well pleased by the wonderful records set up by his ship in the wool trade, he wished to put a carved and gilded rope in teak round her, but this project was never carried out. However, the ship possessed a yet more striking ornament in the golden shirt or cutty sark which fitted over the pin at the main-truck. had a teak deck, and was beautifully fitted up below. "Her cabins were panelled in teak and bird's-eye maple, with much fancy carving. The furniture was all of teak, and the very best cabinetmaker's work. The captain rejoiced in a heavy teak four-post bed instead of the usual bunk, and another Captain Willis presented fine piece was the saloon side- this emblem to the ship after board. Both of these bits of the defeat of the Thermopylae furniture are still in her. All in the run home from Sydney the cabin - doors had yellow in 1885. It was a challenge cut-glass handles. The saloon The saloon to the golden cock at Therruns athwart-ships; it is a mopylae's masthead. It was neat cosy apartment with a made out of some non-rust fireplace, the mess-table in the yellow metal. It was still 66 aloft when the Cutty's main mast went over the side off the Cape in 1917; some day perhaps it may be washed ashore on the Cape coast, where it will certainly mystify those who find it. . . The hand and arm of Hellyer's Nannie were washed away many years ago, when Captain Woodget was driving the little clipper down in the roaring forties." Such sad losses as these were all in the day's work to the figurehead maker; his productions must always be at the mercy of the elements. Far more trying to the artist's soul it must have been when the ship's owner was suddenly seized with a fit of incongruous propriety, and ordered the removal of the witches dancing in light attire on the clipper's bow. One cannot but wish that old "White Hat's" delicacy had developed in some different direction, but he was not a man to be trifled with. He gave his captains a free hand, but would never allow them any interest in their ships, neither would he allow their wives aboard. Shrewd Jock Willis ! He chose Captain Moodie to be the first skipper of the Cutty Sark, a man of much character. "If he was a careful navigator, with a great deal of Scotch caution which made him disinclined to take risks in the Chinese Seas, like some of his rivals, he knew how to carry sail, and he was a magnificent seaman and a good business man, which in those days often meant the difference between a good voyage and a bad one from the owner's point of view." The Cutty Sark was launched on a Monday, 23rd November, was towed to Greenock to be rigged and masted, and in January of 1870 began taking in her first cargo. She resembled a huge yacht, and represented the very last thing in composite building. She started on her maiden voyage to Shanghai on 16th February, the last but one of the tea fleet to get away, and with just time to reach Shanghai before the new teas came down. This, her maiden voyage, was specially remarkable for lack of wind. She lay becalmed on the line, and a little later had four days of almost continual calms. "Winds variable, light airs, and calms," are reported continuously in her log, and Captain Moodie grew very tired of the noise of her sails clashing against her masts. 66 "Calm! calm! calm! Sea like a mirror," he wrote in the ship's log on 26th March. It was not until midnight on 3rd April that the wind at last piped up from the right quarter, and gave the Cutty Sark her first chance to show what she could do. On the 8th she made her first run of over 300 miles, her distance for the 24 hours being 304 miles. But that very afternoon the wind fell light again; and so on, by a succession of faint variable airs and calms, with thunder squalls between, |