Anglona (clipper)

Last updated
History
US flag 26 stars.svgUnited States
Name:Anglona
Owner: R.B. Forbes, Russell & Co.
Builder: Brown & Bell, New York
Launched: 1840
General characteristics
Class and type: Opium clipper
Tons burthen: 90 or 92 tons
Sail plan: Schooner [1] [2]

The schooner Anglona was the first American opium clipper. [1] She sailed in the Chinese coastal trade in the 1840s, and had a famous race with the schooner Ariel around Lintin Island.

Contents

Construction

Anglona was a flush decked fore-and-aft schooner of the New York pilot boat type.

Opium clipper in Chinese coastal trade

R.B. Forbes was interested in fast schooners for clipper and coastal service in China. The first clipper which Forbes sent to China, the Rose, foundered in the July typhoon of 1841.

Forbes purchased Anglona at Brown & Bell's New York yard for Russell & Co. for use as a despatch boat between Hong Kong, Macao, and Whampoa.

Other American pilot boat models sent to China in the 1840s included the Zephyr and the Spec, also built on the New York model. Shortly after Shanghai opened to foreign trade, three Boston pilot boats were sent: the 90 ton Golden Gate, the 90 ton Siren, and the 75 ton Daniel Webster, which served as pilot boats in the Yangtze River.

Within two weeks of purchase, Anglona sailed for China under Captain Turner. She arrived at Cape Horn in 61 days, and Java Head in 95 days.

Russell & Co put Anglona in service on the Canton River until the new treaty ports opened, at which time she was put in the coastal trade.

A view of Lintin Island from Castle Peak, Hong Kong Nei Lingding Island 2.jpg
A view of Lintin Island from Castle Peak, Hong Kong

Captain Turner did not serve long, as he was knocked overboard by the mainboom during a sudden jibe, and drowned. In 1843, Anglona was under command of Capt. Abbot and Capt. Adamson; in 1844 she was under Captain Macfarlane.

On September 20, 1841, Anglona left Hong Kong with a 108-ton cargo of rice from Macao bound for the East Coast; on Dec. 2, she left Hong Kong with a 108-ton cargo from Macao of opium or specie bound for Namoa.

Race around Lintin Island with schooner Ariel

Lee, the designer of the Rose, wanted to know why Forbes hadn't come to him for a clipper schooner instead, and got Forbes to agree to taking a half interest in one of his schooners if it could beat the Anglona.

The Ariel, a new 92-ton schooner built by Sprague & James at Medford, MA was taken out for a trial in 1841 out of Lewis Wharf in Boston Harbor, against the 30 ton schooner-yacht Breeze, which had been built for Forbes by Daniel C. Bacon and William H. Boardman. Lee was quite cocky and told Forbes that if he could sail the Ariel hard enough to capsize her, he would "give him his head for a football."

Forbes managed to do just that. The wind had freshened and was blowing in hard puffs. He had suggested taking in a second reef, but his companions assured him the wind would slacken as they approached the harbor. In stays off Sound Point Beacon, the Ariel laid down before she could get way on for a tack towards Long Island, and sank in seven fathoms of water.

When Ariel was refloated, Lee agreed to reduce the rig, and cut down the masts as per Forbes’ suggestion. Ariel was then sent to China under Capt. Poor, making an 80-day passage to Anjer.

The race between Ariel and Anglona was about 40 mi., from Macao Roads around Lintin and back, for stakes of $1,000 and Forbes’ agreement to take half-interest in Ariel if she won. Anglona was much stronger sailing to windward, due to the shallow draft of Ariel, and took the lead until rounding the island. At that point, Ariel set a large flying square sail and topsail. Anglona had no ballooning sails for running downwind, and was beaten by 17 minutes. [2] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

Clipper Very fast sailing ship of the 19th century

A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Clipper" does not refer to a specific sailplan; clippers may be schooners, brigs, brigantines, etc., as well as full-rigged ships. Clippers were mostly constructed in British and American shipyards, though France, Brazil, the Netherlands and other nations also produced some. Clippers sailed all over the world, primarily on the trade routes between the United Kingdom and China, in transatlantic trade, and on the New York-to-San Francisco route around Cape Horn during the California Gold Rush. Dutch clippers were built beginning in the 1850s for the tea trade and passenger service to Java.

Robert Bennet Forbes

Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, was an American sea captain, China merchant and ship owner. He was active in ship construction, maritime safety, the opium trade, and charitable activities, including food aid to Ireland, which became known as America's first major disaster relief effort.

<i>Ariel</i> (clipper)

Ariel was a clipper ship famous for making fast voyages between China and England in the late 1860s. She is most famous for almost winning The Great Tea Race of 1866, an unofficial race between Foochow, China and London with the first tea crop of the 1866 season.

<i>Sir Lancelot</i> (clipper)

Sir Lancelot was a clipper ship which sailed in the China trade and the India-Mauritius trade.

Great Tea Race of 1866

In the middle third of the 19th Century, the clippers which carried cargoes of tea from China to Britain would compete in informal races to be first ship to dock in London with the new crop of each season. The Great Tea Race of 1866 was keenly followed in the press, with an extremely close finish. Taeping docked 28 minutes before Ariel - after a passage of more than 14,000 miles. Ariel had been ahead when the ships were taken in tow by steam tugs off Deal, but after waiting for the tide at Gravesend the deciding factor was the height of tide at which one could enter the different docks used by each ship. The third finisher, Serica, docked an hour and 15 minutes after Ariel. These three ships had left China on the same tide and arrived at London 99 days later to dock on the same tide. The next to arrive, 28 hours later, was Fiery Cross, followed, the next day, by Taitsing.

The Serica was a clipper built in 1863 by Robert Steele & Co., at Greenock on the south bank of the Clyde, Scotland, for James Findlay. She was the last-but-one wooden clipper built by Steele before the yard went over to building composite clippers.

<i>Fiery Cross</i> (clipper) British tea clipper

Fiery Cross was a famous British tea clipper which sailed in the Great Tea Race of 1866. She was the first ship home in the tea seasons of 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1865.

The barque Sea Witch was an 1848 British Opium clipper and tea clipper. She sailed in the First Tea Race in 1850.

<i>Memnon</i> (clipper)

The Memnon was the first clipper ship to arrive in San Francisco after the Gold Rush, and the only clipper to arrive in San Francisco before 1850. Built in 1848, she made record passages to San Francisco and to China, and sailed in the first clipper race around Cape Horn.

<i>Golden West</i> (clipper)

Golden West was an 1852 extreme clipper built by Paul Curtis. The ship had a very active career in the California trade, the guano trade, the coolie trade, the Far East, and Australia. She made a record passage between Japan and San Francisco in 1856.

<i>Witch of the Wave</i>

Witch of the Wave was a long-lived extreme clipper in the California trade, with a sailing life of over 34 years. In 1851, she sailed from Calcutta to Boston in 81 days, setting a record. It was renamed the Electra in 1871.

<i>Sylph</i> (1831 ship)

Sylph was a clipper ship built at Sulkea, opposite Calcutta, in 1831 for the Parsi merchant Rustomjee Cowasjee. After her purchase by the Hong Kong-based merchant house Jardine Matheson, in 1833 Sylph set a speed record by sailing from Calcutta to Macao in 17 days, 17 hours. Her primary role was to transport opium between various ports in the Far East. She disappeared en route to Singapore in 1849.

<i>Lahloo</i> (clipper)

Lahloo was a British tea clipper known for winning the Tea Race of 1870, and finishing second in the Tea Race of 1871. She sailed from Foochow to London with over a million pounds of tea in 1868.

<i>Lord of the Isles</i> (clipper)

Lord of the Isles was the first iron-hulled tea clipper, built in Greenock in 1853. She served in the tea trade until 1862, and also made voyages to Australia. She is known for a record passage between Greenock and Shanghai, and for her close finish in the 1856 Tea Race from China to England, docking in London just ten minutes before Maury. This race was the basis for the plot of a 1927 movie by Cecil B. DeMille The Yankee Clipper.

Eamont was an opium clipper built in Cowes. It was the subject of an 1891 book, A cruise in an opium clipper, by Captain Lindsay Anderson.

Zephyr was an 1842 opium clipper built by Samuel Hall, East Boston that was known for its speed.

<i>Red Rover</i> (clipper)

Red Rover was the name of two clipper ships.

Hercules was built at Calcutta in 1814. She acquired British registry and traded between Britain and India under a license from the British East India Company (EIC), before returning to Calcutta registry. She then traded opium between India and China, and became an opium receiving ship for Jardine Matheson. In 1839 she was one of the vessels that surrendered her store of opium to be burned at the behest of Chinese officials at Canton. This incident was one of the proximate causes of the First Opium War (1839–1842). Her owners apparently sold her to American owners in 1839.

<i>Bald Eagle</i> (clipper) 19th c. American clipper ship

Bald Eagle was a clipper ship launched in 1852 which made four round-trip passages from eastern U.S. ports before being lost on her fifth voyage in the Pacific ocean in 1861. She set the record, 78 days 22 hours, for the fastest passage of a fully loaded ship between San Francisco and New York.

Ardaseer was an opium clipper built at Bombay Dockyard in 1836. A fire on 4 April 1851 destroyed her as she was on a voyage from China to Calcutta via Singapore.

References

  1. 1 2 Lubbock, Basil (1919). The China Clippers (4th ed.). Glasgow: James Brown & Son. p. 23.
  2. 1 2 Lubbock, Basil (1933). The Opium Clippers. Boston, MA: Charles E. Lauriat Co. pp. 18, 239–247, 383.
  3. Forbes, Robert Bennet (1878). Personal reminiscences. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. p. 344.

Online reading