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Schooner Man
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Lightning Clipper Ship
The Lighting was built by Donald Mackay to the order of James Baines in the winter 1853-1854 at a cost of 30000 pounds and on her arrival in Liverpool was furnish and decorated below at a further cost of 2000 pounds, Her poop was 92 feet long and her saloon 86 feet, whilst she had 8 feet under the beams in her tween deck, a most unusual height for those days. With regards to design she was one of the sharpest ships ever launched. Her model is thus described by Captain H. H. Clark: - She had a long concaved water-line and at her load displacement line a chord from her cutwater just abaft the fore rigging showed a concavity of 16 inches. Her stern raked boldly forward. the lines of the bow gradually becoming convex and blending with the sheer line and cut water while the only ornament was a beautiful full length women holding a golden thunderbolt in her out stretch hand, The flow white drapery of her graceful form and her streaming hair completing the fair and noble outline of the bow. She spread 13,000 yards of canvas when under all plain sail. Donald McKay had her rigged as a three skysail ship, but latter Messrs. James Baines fitted her with a moonsail on the main by lengthening the sky sail mast. This was also done in the case of the James Baines. And these two ships had the proud distinction of being perhaps the only two ships afloat which regular cross a moonsail yard The Lighting was provided with iron water tanks holing 36,000 gallons of water - a novelty at that time, And in various other way her accommodation for passengers was an improvement on anything attempted before. The great Bully Forbes was sent out to Boston to superintend her outfit and take command other, and was lucky in finding a valuable friend in Captain Lauchlan Mackay, who made the trip to Liverpool in her as builder representative. LIGHTNING AND RED JACKET SAILING SHIPS
Cut water - the leading edge of the bow Sheer- the longitudinal curves of a ship deck or side. Sheer line- drawing showing the freeboard thu out the vessel length Moonsail- sails above the sky sails Information on this page from the Colonial Clippers by Basil Lubbock 1921 |
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This site is design and maintained by Tom Van Oosterhout tom@seatalebooks.com 03/03/2008 |
