The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock.

  • Lubbock, Basil, 1876-1944.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Britain; at the same time the optimistic Ben Forbes busied himself on the other side of the Atlantic in interviewing the best designers in America with the object of building suitable flyers for the China Coast. As each new ship entered the lists, the keener became the racing. Whilst the captains of the new clippers loudly proclaimed the marvellous sailing powers of their beauties, those of the old favourites pointed proudly to their past records and defied the newcomers to beat them. “ Sylph ” and “ Poppy.” In the spring of 1841 a newspaper admirer of the Sylph wrote as follows:— The good old Sylph, the first clipper in the construction of which Mr. Seppings essayed his talents, still wears the belt for a clean pair of heels. Far prettier vessels have been built here, but none that can show her stern to the Sylph in a race. The beginning of the year is not the best time to make a quick passage to Singapore (from Calcutta) yet the tight little clipper left the pilot on January 27 and reached Singapore on February 9 only 13 days and a few hours in going from port to port. Hardly was the ink dry on this letter before the Poppy came sailing into Singapore only 12 days out from the Sandheads. “This speaks well for the youngster,” wrote another shipping correspondent, “and we shall expect she will keep pace with her senior in future however difficult the Poppy found it on three several occasions to keep pace with the Sylph's graceful progress. I am told, however, that 12 days can bear no comparison with 9 and a few hours—the time in which the Sylph has done the trick. ” There we see the rivalry showing itself in the public news-sheet. At this distance of time it is quite impossible to reach any conclusions as to which of the chief cracks “should be awarded the belt,” as those sporting early Victorians had it. If full records were pro¬ curable it would be another matter, but they are not. Racing down the Hooghly. These letters to the newspapers give one a very good idea of the keenness and partizanship displayed for favourite ships not only by officers, crews and passengers, but by people ashore in those days before the machine.