US and UK measurements differ as measuring systems had slightly different rules.
Flying Cloud was a clippership that set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours. The ship held this record for over 130 years, from 1854 to 1989.
Flying Cloud was the most famous of the clippers built by Donald McKay. She was known for her extremely close race with Hornet in 1853; for having a woman navigator, Eleanor Creesy, wife of Josiah Perkins Creesy who skippered Flying Cloud on two record-setting voyages from New York to San Francisco; and for sailing in the Australia and timber trades.
Construction
Lines of Flying Cloud
Flying Cloud was built in East Boston, Massachusetts, and intended for Enoch Train of Boston, who paid $50,000 for her construction. While still under construction, she was purchased by Grinnell, Minturn & Co., of New York, for $90,000, (~$2.62million in 2023) which represented a huge profit for Train & Co.[2]
A reporter for the Boston Daily Atlas of 25 April 1851 wrote, "If great length [235 ft.], sharpness of ends, with proportionate breadth [41 ft.] and depth, conduce to speed, the Flying Cloud must be uncommonly swift, for in all these she is great. Her length on the keel is 208 feet, on deck 225, and over all, from the knightheads to the taffrail, 235— extreme breadth of beam 41 feet, depth of hold 21½, including 7 feet 8 inches height of between-decks, sea-rise at half-floor 20 inches, rounding of sides 6 inches, and sheer about 3 feet."[3]Flying Cloud is often called an extreme clipper, as are many of Donald McKay's ships, even though her deadrise was only 30 inches.[4]
Record voyage to San Francisco during Gold Rush
"The Clipper Ship Flying Cloud off the Needles, Isle of Wight 1859–1860"; painting by James E. Buttersworth
Within six weeks of her 1851 launch Flying Cloud sailed from New York, rounded Cape Horn and made San Francisco in 89 days, 21 hours under the command of Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy. In July, during the trip, she ran 284, 374 and 334 nautical miles, a total of 992 nautical miles over the three consecutive days.[5] In 1854 she beat her own fastest by 13 hours, setting a record that stood until 1989 when a contemporary 60ft racing sloop, Thursday's Child, completed the passage in 80 days, 20 hours.[6][7]
In the early days of the California Gold Rush, it took more than 200 days for a ship to travel from New York to San Francisco, a voyage of more than 16,000 miles, but clipper ships quickly cut that time in half. Surprise had set a record of 91 days, 21 hours on 19 March 1851, but Flying Cloud caused a sensation later that year, cutting a week off the record, and beating the three month barrier.[2] Three years later, in 1854, she sailed the passage faster yet, setting a record that lasted for 135 years.
In newspaper accounts of the day, the clipper Andrew Jackson was acclaimed as holding the record passage to San Francisco. After careful scrutiny of the logbooks, Cutler concludes that a case can be made for either Flying Cloud or Andrew Jackson holding the record.
Andrew Jackson holds the record for fastest passage pilot-to-pilot, arriving at the San Francisco pilot grounds in 89 days and 4 hours. Because Andrew Jackson spent all night between the Farallon Islands and the Golden Gate awaiting a harbor pilot, some will consider this figure as the appropriate indicator of fastest sailing performance around Cape Horn.
However, Flying Cloud holds the record time for a completed voyage from New York to San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours anchor-to-anchor.[8]
Woman navigator
Flying Cloud's achievement was remarkable under any terms. But, writes David W. Shaw,[5] it was all the more unusual because her navigator was a woman, Eleanor Creesy, who had been studying oceanic currents, weather phenomena, and astronomy since her girlhood in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She was one of the first navigators to exploit the insights of Matthew Fontaine Maury, most notably the course recommended in his Sailing Directions. With her husband, ship captain Josiah Perkins Creesy, she logged many thousands of miles on the ocean, traveling around the world carrying passengers and goods. In the wake of their record-setting transit from New York to California, Eleanor and Josiah became instant celebrities. But their fame was short-lived and their story quickly forgotten. Josiah died in 1871 and Eleanor lived far from the sea until her death in 1900.
Race with clipper Hornet in 1853
Hornet had a two-day head start on Flying Cloud in their famous 1853 race. She left New York for San Francisco, 26 April 1853, with Flying Cloud departing two days later.
After the roughly 15,000-mile voyage around Cape Horn, both ships arrived in San Francisco harbor 106 days later at almost the same time, with Hornet sailing in just 45 minutes ahead of the Flying Cloud.[9][self-published source]
British clipper to Australia and New Zealand, New Brunswick timber trade
Depiction of Flying Cloud with a fuller sail configuration than in the Jacobsen painting above
In 1862, Flying Cloud was sold to the Black Ball Line, Liverpool, sailing under British colors without change of name, and was soon traveling between the mother country and Australia and New Zealand. Her latter years were spent in the log trade between Newcastle upon Tyne, England, and Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Loss of the ship
On 19 June 1874, Flying Cloud went ashore on the Beacon Island bar, Saint John, New Brunswick. After she was refloated, it was discovered that her back was broken. The following June she was burned for the scrap metal value of her copper and iron fastenings.[1]:75[10]:61
Ballad
A well-known ballad about a ship named Flying Cloud tells the story of an Irishman who was pressed into sailing on the ship on a slaving voyage from Baltimore via Bermuda to West Africa, which led to another voyage as a pirate ship that resulted in the execution of the crew at Newgate. However, these events are nothing to do with the actual history of the clipper ship.[11][12]
Novels and books
Lyon, Margaret; Reynolds, Flora Elizabeth (1992). The Flying Cloud, and her first passengers. Oakland, California: Mills College. OCLC27204043.
1 2 3 4 5 MacGregor, David R. (1983). The Tea Clippers, Their History and Development 1833-1875. Conway Maritime Press Limited. p.75. ISBN0-85177-256-0.
↑ The Maritime Heritage Project; D. Blethen Adams Levy (2008). "Clipper Ships in San Francisco". The Maritime Heritage Project. Retrieved 10 November 2010.
↑ Knoblock, Glenn A. (15 January 2014). The American clipper ship, 1845-1920: a comprehensive history, with a listing of builders and their ships. McFarland. pp.19–20. ISBN978-0-7864-7112-6.
↑ Cutler, Carl C. (1960). Greyhounds of the Sea. Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute. pp.360–368.
↑ Bruzelius, Lars (2 January 1996). "Clipper Ships: "Hornet" (1851)". Hornet. The Maritime History Virtual Archives. Retrieved 7 June 2010.
↑ MacGregor, David R. (1993). British & American clippers: a comparison of their design, construction and performance in the 1850s. London: Conway Maritime. ISBN0-85177-588-8.
↑ Beck, Horace P. (1953). "The Riddle of The Flying Cloud". The Journal of American Folklore. 66 (260): 123–133. doi:10.2307/537325. JSTOR537325.
↑ Laws K28. No historical basis known. Horace P. Beck, 'The Riddle of "The Flying Cloud", Journal of American Folklore, 66 (1953), pp. 123-33, is a thorough study of the ballad.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flying Cloud.
A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century.
Donald McKay was a Nova Scotian-born American designer and builder of sailing ships, famed for his record-setting extreme clippers.
Sovereign of the Seas, a clipper ship built in 1852, was a sailing vessel notable for setting the world record for the fastest sailing ship, with a speed of 22 knots (41 km/h).
Northern Light was an American clipper ship. In 1853 it sailed from San Francisco, California to Boston, Massachusetts via Cape Horn with Captain Freeman Hatch at the helm in a record-setting 76 days, 6 hours. The record still stands for a single hull vessel. In 1993 the record was soundly broken by a multi-hull sailing vessel Great American II with no cargo. Sailing around Cape Horn is widely regarded as one of the most challenging routes in yachting, due to extreme weather, strong currents, and a historical reputation for mountainous seas and frequent severe storms.
Sweepstakes was an 1853 clipper ship in the California trade. She was known for a record passage from New York to Bombay, and for a race around the Horn with three other clippers.
Surprise was a California clipper built in East Boston in 1850. It initially rounded Cape Horn to California, but the vessel's owners, A. A. Low & Brother, soon found that the vessel performed well in Far Eastern waters. From that point onward the vessel spent much of her working life in the China trade, although the vessel also made three trips from the East Coast of the United States to California.
The Young America was built by William H. Webb of New York. She was launched in 1853, at the height of the clipper construction boom. She sailed in the California trade, on transatlantic routes, and made voyages to Australia and the Far East.
Witchcraft was a clipper built in 1850 for the California and China trade. She made record passages from Rio de Janeiro to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to Callao, Peru.
Herald of the Morning was one of the few clipper ships with a passage to San Francisco in less than 100 days.
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.
Hornet was an 1851 extreme clipper in the San Francisco trade, famous for its race with Flying Cloud.
Lookout was an 1853 clipper known for her passages from New York to San Francisco, and as an offshore and coastal trader in the lumber and coal trades.
John Gilpin was an 1852 clipper in the California trade, named after the literary character John Gilpin. The ship was known for its 1852 race against the clipper Flying Fish, and for its collision with an iceberg.
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.
The sailing ship Andrew Jackson, a 1,679-registered-ton medium clipper, was built by the firm of Irons & Grinnell in Mystic, Connecticut in 1855. The vessel was designed for the shipping firm of J.H. Brower & Co. to carry cargo intended for sale to participants in the California Gold Rush.
Comet was an 1851 California clipper built by William H. Webb which sailed in the Australia trade and the tea trade. This extreme clipper was very fast. She had record passages on two different routes: New York City to San Francisco, and Liverpool to Hong Kong, and beat the famous clipper Flying Dutchman in an 1853 race around the Horn to San Francisco.
Syren was the longest lived of all the clipper ships, with a sailing life of 68 years 7 months. She sailed in the San Francisco trade, in the Far East, and transported whaling products from Hawaii and the Arctic to New Bedford.
Eleanor Creesy was an American navigator, who was the wife of Josiah Perkins Creesy, skipper of the Flying Cloud which set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco in 1851. They beat their own record three years later, and it remained a record until 1989.
Shooting Star was an extreme clipper built in 1851 near Boston, in Medford, Massachusetts. She was the first "real clipper" to be built in Medford, and sailed in the San Francisco, China, and Far East trades. According to Howe and Matthews, she was known as "one of the fastest of the small clippers".
Hurricane was a large extreme clipper of 1608 tons burthen built in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States in 1851. Reputedly the most extreme clipper ever built, Hurricane proved a very fast vessel, reportedly capable of speeds of up to 18 knots (33 km/h) in ideal conditions, and establishing a number of record passages in the early years of her career.
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