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The Tea Clippers.

Tea Clippers.

Tea had been imported into Britain from China since the days of Charles 11, and for a century-and-a-half the lordly East lndiamen carried it around the Cape of Good Hope to England. In times of war, the ships sailed in convoy but a year's reserve of tea was held in London in case the ships should be captured. Thus the tea drunk was always about twelve months old. The Chinese restricted trade to the port of Canton, but after the Anglo-Chinese war of 1839-42, additional ports such as Hong Kong, Foochow, Shanghai and Hankow were opened to trade, the volume of which increased rapidly. The Honourable East India Company had meanwhile lost its trade monopoly, and smaller ships were by then carrying tea.


To increase sales, dealers in England advertised that the 'new teas' had arrived by a certain ship and it was said that they had a better flavour than that kept in stock for a year. Thus a demand grew for fresh tea. The tea was gathered in May and was ready for shipment in June and July, but the problem was that the south-west monsoon was at that season blowing strongly straight up the China Sea, and the ships had to beat down against it before they could pass through Sunda Straits between Java and Sumatra and out into the Indian Ocean. To overcome the difficulty, ships capable of sailing at faster speeds and of beating to windward were attracted to the trade; by the end of the 1840s, a number of ships of about 400 tons had been specifically designed for ,the purpose.


But in 1849, the British Navigation Acts were repealed, thus permitting ships of any nationality to bring cargoes to Britain, including tea from China. The change coincided with the discovery of gold in California, to supply the needs of which vast numbers of large clippers were built on the east coast of America, and when they had delivered their gold- hungry passengers at San Francisco, they found the tea trade to England was conveniently ready for them. Indeed, their fame had already preceded them, and they were quickly engaged to load tea for London at rates of £6 and £7 per ton, much to the annoyance of the British shipowners, who received about £2 or £3 per ton less.


So began a rivalry which lasted some years, until the fever of the Californian gold rush cooled by 1855. Five years later, the American Civil War removed all competition from that quarter, but competition between British owners continued throughout the next decade.


The principal difference between the British and American ships was size. For instance, the Oriental, which was the first American ship to enter the Thames with China tea, was of 1003 tons, double that of the British clippers. But many American clippers that carried tea were much larger, such as the Challenge of 2006 tons, Comet of 1836 tons, Sovereign of the Seas of 2420 tons. They were all built of wood with very few iron structural members in the hull, with the result that the construction became massive to support the strains encountered in such a large vessel. Unfortunately, the ports in China were not accustomed to such big ships and the arrangements for collecting the cargo were only geared to loading small vessels, with the result that delays occurred in filling the big clippers with tea.


Large ships were not necessarily faster than the smaller British ones, especially among the hazards of the China Sea, and there was some consolation to be gained in England from news of the Oriental's arrival in December 1850, which showed that the Aberdeen-built ship John Bunyan had earlier that same year made a passage of 101 days between Shanghai and London, or only four days longer than the American ship.


It was to Aberdeen shipyards that British owners turned for clippers in the early eighteen-fifties, and it was the yard of Alexander Hall & Sons that turned out some of the fastest ships for the tea trade during that decade. Examination of surviving builder's models shows that Reindeer (1848), Stornoway (1850), Chrysolite (1851 ), Cairngorm (1853,) Vision (1854) and Robin Hood (1856) were undoubted clippers. All these ships had the Aberdeen clipper bow, which was plainer and less ornate than conventional British practice, but resulted in far greater overhang forward. All were full-rigged ships carrying four or five yards on each mast, and the sails were further extended on each side by the use of studding-sails or stunsails.


The Cairngorm's design was not dictated by an owner's requirements but embodied her builder's convictions of what a large clipper should be. It was a bold decision for a builder to construct such a specialised ship on speculation, without first obtaining a firm order, but Alexander Hall & Sons were proved right because, after she was bought by the eminent firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co, she turned out to be one of the fastest British clippers in the tea trade during the 1850s. She cost £1 5.434, which works out at about £700 less than the original cost of the Cutty Sark. Cairngorm registered 939 tons new measurement, which meant that she cost £1 6.43 for every ton. By today's standards, it is an incredibly cheap price for a first-class ship built by superb craftsmen.


Acknowledged as 'Cock of the Walk', the Cairngorm made many fast passages, such as her maiden trip of 72 days from Lisbon to Hong Kong in 1853. (She had been obliged to put into Lisbon after being dismasted.) Her fastest homeward passage from China was in 1858-9, when she raced home from Macao to Deal in 91 days.


The American clipper Comet, in 1854, sailed from Liverpool to Hong Kong in only 84 days, between dropping one pilot and picking up the other one, and a year later another American ship, the Eagle Wing, took 83' days between her pilots, from Deal to Hong Kong. The design, launching, and sailing of the American clippers was attended with great enthusiasm at their home ports. and the descriptions in the local papers far exceeded anything that the British could read about their own ships. For instance, the Boston Daily Atlas ended its description of the Challenge in the following manner: 'She is owned by Messrs N L & G Griswold of New York, was built by Wm H Webb, and is commanded by Captain Robert H Waterman. Like the knights of old, who threw their gauntlets down to all corners, her owners send her forth, to challenge the worlda float !'


In the past, the term 'Clipper' was used quite loosely to cover any ship that had made a fast passage, but research today bestows the term only on ships for which plans or models can prove a clipper rating. Such ships had the lines of a yacht and little attention was given to the amount of' cargo to be carried, the attainment of high speed at all times being the chief factor. Some of the American clippers had comparatively flat bottoms, in order to gain the required stability for rounding Cape Horn en route to California, but they made up for that by having extremely sharp ends at bow and stern.


British clippers in the tea trade, not having to encounter the big seas of the Roaring Forties, were designed with sharper V-shaped bottoms. American clippers sometimes achieved speeds of 20 and 21 knots, and on several occasions, sailed over 400 miles in the course of 24 hours. The smaller British clippers, with their shorter hulls, did not possess the same potential for speed, yet ships such as Thermopylae and Cutty Sark could sail at speeds of 17 knots and cover 360 miles in 24 hours.


Other British shipbuilders who specialised in building tea clippers during the 1850s were John Pile of Sunderland, who built the barques Spirit of the Age and Spirit of the North, and his brother William, who built Crest of the Wave, Spray of the Ocean, Kelso and Lammermuir,. Benjamin Nicholson of Annan, on the Solway Firth, who built Annandale, Queensberry and Shakspere,. and Bilbe and Perry of Rotherhithe, who built Celestial, Lauderdale and Wynaud. It was becoming increasingly rare for deepwater ships of over 500 tons to be built in the south of England after 1850, apart from shipyards on the River Thames.


A number of extremely sharp clippers were constructed entirely of iron for the Australian trade, after gold was found there in 1851; some of those ships later participated in the tea trade, but they were always regarded with suspicion as it was claimed that the tea was damaged in their holds through lack of adequate ventilation. Two such ships, built in 1853, were the Gauntlet and Lord of the Isles from shipyards on the River Clyde. An engraving of the former published in the Illustrated London News described her as 'the most perfect clipper ship ever launched on the Clyde, and she appears more like a yacht of large tonnage than a private merchant ship.' A similar description was given of Lord of the Isles, whose fastest passage from China was one of 90 days made in 1858-9 between Shanghai and London or 87 days to passing the Lizard. Many passages were calculated as the elapsed time between losing sight of land and catching sight of it again, or between dropping the pilot and picking up another on arrival.


Although the tea clippers built during the 1860s consistently made shorter passages than those of the previous decade, the majority did not possess any sharper form of hull, and the faster passages must be attributed to the greater experience of the captains and of the shipbuilders. The design of the earlier ships was somewhat experimental in nature, as the building of large clippers was in its infancy. After 1863, design of tea clippers became more stylised as the success of ships built by Robert Steele & Sons asserted itself.


In 1860, there appeared the Fiery Cross, designed by the celebrated naval architect William Rennie, and constructed in Liverpool. This ship had a length of 185 feet, a maximum breadth of 31.7 feet and a depth of hold of 19.2 feet and registered 695 tons. She was a beautiful ship and, more important, a fast and successful one, both of which attributes she certainly owed to her first two captains, John Dallas and Richard Robinson. In those days, the first ship to dock in London with the new teas received an extra premium of up to £1 per ton of tea carried, to be divided pro rata among the crew, and Fiery Cross won the premium in the years 1861, 1862, 1863 and 1865. No doubt her success influenced ships built in other yards.


The long-established firm of Robert Steele & Sons of Greenock had already produced Kate Carnie and Ellen Rodger, but it was probable with the Falcon launched in 1859 that they first achieved fame with a tea clipper. As a result of the success, they were later able to build such crack ships as Taeping (1863), Ariel and Sir Lancelot (1865) Titania (1866), Lahloo (1867), and Kaisow (1868). Those ships accomplished some of the fastest passages ever made under sail to and from China. In 1866-7, Ariel took only 80 days (between pilots) from London to Hong Kong; in 1 869, Sir Lancelot was a mere 84 days from Foochow to the Lizard, bound for London; and in 1871, Titania took 93 days between the same ports. The ships possessed the advantages found in all fast clippers, a comparatively high speed in light winds and the ability to beat dead to windward in a stiff breeze.


But although so much care and devotion was lavished on the great ships, they still had to produce a satisfactory income for their owners, and the builders were obliged to quote in competition with each other to get orders. The ships built by Steele probably cost no more than £17 or £18 per ton. That would have been for a composite hull, that is to say, an iron framework with external wooden planking a form of construction that gave extremely long life. Several vessels so constructed still survive. For example, there are the incomparable Cutty Sark in dry dock at Greenwich; the Carrick, ex City of Adelaide, (1864) used as an RNVR club in Glasgow; and the Ambassador (1869), now a hulk at Punta Arenas in the Straits of Magellan, with her iron frame intact but most of her planking stripped off by the locals.


Needless to say, there were many races between the 'full bloods', as the crack clippers were called but the most celebrated occurred in 1866 between Fiery Cross, Ariel, Serica, Taeping and Taitsing,. which left Foochow in that order at the end of May. Beating down the China Sea, Fiery Cross reached Anjer in 20 days, beating the field by one day. Taitsing, which had left a day behind the others, gradually closed the gap as they caught the favourable trades in the run down the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. The first four all passed Flores in the Azores on the same day, but somehow Fiery Cross dropped back in the rush for the English Channel. Ariel and Taeping logged 14 knots as they ran up the Channel within sight of each other for most of September 5, while Serica was out of sight near the French coast. Ariel signalled her number off Deal at eight o'clock in the morning of September 6, 98 days 22 1 hours after dropping her pilot, and Taeping did likewise ten minutes later. The two ships docked later the same day and Serica also just managed to get in before the lock gates closed. All England was thrilled with the news, except the dealers who were faced with a sudden glut of tea. In later years, the premium for the first ship home was abandoned.


But there were other splendid clippers which fiercely contested with Robert Steele's ships for the accolade of supremacy. Chief amongst them were the Maitland and Undine, designed and built at Sunderland by William Pile; the Taitsing, Spindrift and Windhover produced by Charles Connell at Glasgow; Norman Court and Black Prince designed by William Rennie; The Caliph built by Alexander Hall & Sons at Aberdeen.' Leander and Thermopylae designed by Bernard Waymouth; and the Cutty Sark built by Scott & Linton at Dumbarton. The ships themselves were mostly in the 750 to 950 tons range. and so were fairly evenly matched in many cases. All were sailed by skilful captains and handpicked crews of about 30 men.


Many seamen have rated the Thermopylae as the fastest all-round British clipper. She was launched in 1868, a year before the Suez Canal was opened, from the Aberdeen yard of Waiter Hood & Co, and was of very similar form to Leander, which was built the previous year. She registered 948 tons. How lovely she must have looked when making sail in the Downs at the beginning of her maiden passage in November 1868, with her green-painted hull and white masts, her crew sheeting home the snow-white canvas of her new sails as she heeled to the wind. It was the beginning of a momentous voyage, because on each of the three legs she broke the record. From leaving the Lizard to sighting Cape Otway, near Melbourne, it was only 60 days, and the Australian papers marvelled at her speed. Thence, she sailed to Newcastle, New South Wales, to load coal, from where she only took 28 days between pilots, bound for Shanghai. In China, she loaded tea at Foochow, left on July 3, 1869. and was off the Lizard 89 days later. How disappointing for Captain Kemball that his record stood only for 12 days, until Sir Lancelot passed the Lizard 84 days from Foochow.


Paul Stevenson records a yarn told by the captain in his book, By Way of Cape Horn: 'We were running our easting down ... when we sighted a vessel astern. It was blowing hard from the nor'west, and the next time 1 looked, a couple of hours later, there was the ship close on our quarter, and we doing 12 knots. "Holy jiggers", says I to the mate, "there's the Flying Dutchman." "Naw", says he, "it's the Thermopylae." But when she was abeam a little later, she hoisted her name, the Lothair, and its been my opinion ever since that she was making mighty close to 17 knots.'


The Lothair was built on the Thames by Walker for Killick, Martin & Co in 1870, and was one of the last composite clippers to be built. After steamers forced the clippers out of the tea trade to London she made some exceptionally fast passages with tea to New York. In the same year that she was launched, two other tea clippers were built on the Thames. They were the Blackadder and Hallowe'en, both built of iron at Greenwich by Maudslay, Sons & Field. The latter's first three homeward passages from Shanghai were made in 92, 91 and 92 days to London, a most remarkable performance.


John Willis, who owned the two iron ships, had had the Cutty Sark built the previous year by a small yard at Dumbarton on the Clyde, and with her he hoped to beat the Thermopylae. The two ships had a close race of it in 1872, but Cutty Sark had the misfortune to carry away her rudder off the Cape of Good Hope. Nevertheless, she managed to reach London only a week behind. She never made a passage with tea in less than 100 days from China, yet she was capable of high speeds and was given a large spread of canvas with a sharp-bodied hull. It was often the captain who gave a clipper that extra turn of speed, and sometimes he required nerve and daring to keep a thoroughbred clipper under a press of sail day after day.


The clipper captains were a varied bunch; there were the bully-boys, the hell-fire preachers, the pious ones and the strong silent types. To survive, however, they had to have one thing in common they could drive ships.


The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 brought the days of the tea clippers to an end, because steamers could make a much quicker passage home with tea through the canal and earn the highest freight rates. The clippers continued racing home until about 1875, but could not afford to load at £1.50 to £2 per ton and so were switched into other trades.


The Cutty Sark was one such ship. She was really built too late for the tea trade, but in the Australian wool trade, under the redoubtable Captain Woodget, she proved fast and almost unbeatable. Her survival and preservation at Greenwich today form a fitting epitaph to the glorious days of the tea clippers.