Lightning

An extreme clipper ship built in 1854 by Donald McKay, East Boston. Her dimensions were: 226'×44'×26' [loa 243'] and tonnage: 2084 tons.

Duncan McLean gave a detailed description of the ship in The Boston Daily Atlas Tuesday, January 31, 1854. A very similar description was printed in John W. Griffths' U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal, Vol. III (1855-56).

Griffiths also presented dimensions and calculations of the ship on pp 188-189 and discussed the masts and spars on pp 336-340 in the same volume.

1854 January 3: Launched at the shipyard of Donald McKay, East Boston, MA, USA, for the Black Ball Line (James Baines & Co.), Liverpool.
No timid hand or hesitating brain gave form and dimensions to the Lightning. Very great stability; acute extremities; full, short midship body; comparativily small deadrise, and the longest end forward, are points in the excellence of this ship.
John Willis Griffiths: Monthly Nautical Magazine, Vol. IV (1855), August.
1854 February 18 - March 3: Sailed Boston - Liverpool in 13 days, 20 hours under command of Captain James Nicol Forbes who had left the Marco Polo to take command of Donald McKay's new clipper.
In a Letter to the Editor of the Northern Daily Times dated, March 8th, 1854, Captain Forbes disputes a claim from Captain Eldridge of Red Jacket of having done the fastest Atlantic crossing.
Not a ripple curled before her cutwater, nor did the water break at a single place along her sides. She left a wake straight as an arrow, and this was the only mark of her progress. There was a slight swell, and as she rose, one could see the arc of her forefoot rise gently over the sea as she increased her speed.
Duncan McLean: Boston Daily Atlas, 1854.
1854 March 1: On the this day the Lightning sailed 436 miles, which is the longest day's run recorded by a sailing ship.
March 1. — Wind S., strong gales; bore away for the North Channel, carried away the foretopsail and lost jib; hove the log several times, and found the ship going through the water at the rate of 18 to 18½ knots per hour; lee rail under water, and the rigging slack; saw the Irish land at 9:30 p.m. Distance run in the twenty-four hours, 436 miles.
From the Abstract log.
1854 May 14 - July 31: Sailed Liverpool - Melbourne in 77 days. The round trip from England to Australia and Back has been discussed by John Willis Griffiths in the U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal, Vol. III (1855-56). Excerpts from a passenger diary from this passage have also been reprinted in the Dog Watch No. 18 (1968) & 19 (1969).
1854 August 20 - October 23: Sailed Melbourne - Liverpool in 64 days 3 hours.
1855 January 6 — March 20: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 73 days [78 days according to Stammers]. Captain Anthony Enright succeeded Captain Forbes as master who was to assume of command of a new ship, the unlucky Schomberg.
1855 April 11 - June 29: Sailed from Melbourne to Liverpool in 79 days. Eleven issues of The Lightning Gazette printed onboard during the passage have been reprinted in Sea Breezes Vol. 18-19 (1954-1955).
1855: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 81 days.
1855 December 28: Sailed from Melbourne to Liverpool.
1856 May 6 — July 13: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 68 days 10 hours.
1856 August 28 — November 20: Sailed from Melbourne to Liverpool in 84 days.
1857 February 5 — April 15: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 69 days 6 hours.
1857 March 19: Sailed 430 miles in 24 hours while bound for Australia. This is the second longest day's run recorded by a sailing ship.
1857 May 11 — August 1: Sailed from Melbourne to Liverpool in 82 days.
1857 August 25 — November 20: Sailed from Portsmouth to India in 87 days with 650 men and officers of the 7th Hussar regiment.
1859 February 20 — 11: Sailed from Melbourne to Liverpool where she arrived on May 11 after 80 days.
1859: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 69 days.
1861 June 10 — August 30: Sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne where she arrived on August 30 after 81 days.
1862 November 30: Struck a previous unrecorded submerged rock near Point Nepean at Port Phillips Head. At the time the Lightning had a cargo of 4372 bales of wool and 18.650 oz. of gold. The received damage to the forefoot and keel was quickly repaired.
1867: Sold to Thomas Harrison, Liverpool, but continued to sail for the Black Ball Line.
1869 October 31: Burned while loading wool at Geelong. The disaster was described in the Geelong Advertiser, November 1, 1869.

In a Letter to the Editor of the Scientific American published November 26, 1859, Donald McKay writes:

Although I designed and built the Clipper Ship Lightning and therefore ought to be the last to praise her, yet such has been her performance since Englishmen learned to sail her that I must confess I feel proud of her. You are aware that she was so sharp and concave forward that one of her stupid captains who did not comprehend the principle upon which she was built, persuaded the owners to fill in the hollows of her bows. They did so, and according to their British bluff notions, she was not only better for the addition, but would sail faster, and wrote me to the effect. Well, the next passage to Melbourne, Australia, she washed the encumbrance away on one side, and when she returned to Liverpool, the other side was also cleared away. Since then she has been running as I modelled her. As a specimen of her speed, I may say that I saw recorded in her log (of 24 hours) 436 nautical miles, a trifle over 18 knots an hour.

Plans

Blueprint, scale 1:96. Clark Collection, Hart Nautical Museum, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Black ink on tracing cloth. Clark Collection, Hart Nautical Museum, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Henry Hall: Report on the Shipbuilding Industry of the United States, 1884. Identical to the plan drawn in black in on tracing cloth in the Clark Collection.
Scale 1:96. Peabody Essex Museum, Salem. [Copy of the plan in the Clark Collection]
Scale 1:80. U.S. Nautical Magazine.

Select Bibliography:

The Lightning Gazette, Nos. 13-23.
Sea Breezes Vol. 18 (July - December) & Vol. 19 (January - June), Liverpool, 1954-1955.
The Lightning Passage.
The Dogwatch, No. 25 and No. 26, Melbourne, 1968-1969.
Chapelle, Howard I.: The Search for Speed Under Sail 1700-1855.
Bonanza Books, New York, 1967. +8vo, xiv, 451 pp, ill, 16 pl.
Hall, Henry: Models and Measurements.
(1883). Notebook, Penobscot Marine Museum.
Henry Hall: Report on the Shipbuilding Industry of the United States, 1884.
Howe, Octavius T. & Matthews, Fredric C.: American Clipper Ships 1833-1858.
Argosy Antiquarian, New York, 1967 (facs av ou 1926). 2 vols.
McLean, Duncan: The New Clipper Lightning, of Liverpool.
The Boston Daily Atlas, Vol. XXII, No. 181, Tuesday, January 31, 1854.
Reprinted in Howes & Matthews: American Clipper Ships 1833-1858, 1926. pp 356-365, and in Nautical Research Journal Vol. 25 (1979), pp 65-68.
Loney, Jack: The Clipper Lightning in Geelong 1862-1869.
Portarlington, Victoria, 1988. A4, 24 pp, ill.
McKay, Richard: Some Famous Sailing Ships and Their Builder Donald McKay.
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1928. 8vo, xxvii, 395 pp, 62 pl.
Stammers, Michael K.: The Passage Makers.
Teredo Books, Brighton, 1978. +8vo, xxii, 508 pp, ill.

Updated 1998-06-18 by Lars Bruzelius.

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