Race to San Francisco, 1851
''Sea Serpent'' raced ''Tea Race with ''Crest of the Wave''
''Sea Serpent'' sailed fromShanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...forLondon London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...in company with the British clipper ''Crest of the Wave''. A premium of thirty shillings a ton, over and above the amount of the freight, had been offered to the vessel first in, and this was quite sufficient inducement for both skippers to crack on. The two ships were fairly near together all the way home, and they actually hove to for pilots, off the Isle of Wight, within an hour of each other. The American captain determined that he would not be outdone by the Britisher, so leaving his ship in the hands of the mate, he came ashore in the boat that brought out his pilot, took the steamer from Cowes to Southampton, and the train up to Waterloo. From thence he took a cab to the Custom-house, and reported the ''Sea Serpent'' as "arrived," while each ship was carrying on all she knew in order to get into the Thames before the other.
Fast passage between Whampoa and Anjer
In 1853, ''Sea Serpent'' "sailed from Whampoa Reach to New York in 101 days. The 29 days passage from Whampoa to Anjer was the fastest made that season."Description of ''Sea Serpent'' and tea clippers at Whampoa
About 1850-51, the upper anchorage at Whampoa Reach, below Canton, was a sight to be remembered by those who loved to look at beautiful ships, and the 'tea-fleet' was gathered waiting for 'the new crop.' There, moored in line, were the ''Sam Russell,'' the ''Sea-Serpent,'' the '' Challenge,'' the '' Flying Cloud,'' the ''Sea Witch Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...,'' and half a dozen others, bright with paint and varnish and gilding, and their bottoms well cleaned ofbarnacles A barnacle is a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and is hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in eros ...by the swift muddy current of fresh water ... They scrubbedcopper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...,holystone Holystone is a soft and brittle sandstone that was formerly used in the Royal Navy and US Navy for scrubbing and whitening the wooden decks of ships. A variety of origins have been proposed for the term, including that such stones were taken fro ...d decks, squared the yards by the lifts and braces, and hoisted and lowered colors in unison with the Americanman-of-war The man-of-war (also man-o'-war, or simply man) was a Royal Navy expression for a powerful warship or frigate from the 16th to the 19th century. Although the term never acquired a specific meaning, it was usually reserved for a ship armed wi ...which happened to be stationed there ... "But one day, in the 'cool weather,' there would come a sudden change. Our clipper friends had menaloft This list of ship directions provides succinct definitions for terms applying to spatial orientation in a marine environment or location on a vessel, such as ''fore'', ''aft'', ''astern'', ''aboard'', or ''topside''. Terms * Abaft (preposition ..., bending sails ... and all readiness was made for sea. About noon the great covered chop-boats came down the stream, with immense chattering of men and all sorts of fuss ... Stages were rigged, and the chests and half-chests came on board and were stowed away like magic, for the ship's capacity had been exactly measured beforehand, and each chest or half-chest fitted into place like a piece in a Chinese puzzle. These large ships were thus loaded in a few hours. Each chest had two slips of bamboo ... As they came over the gangways one slip was seized by an officer of the vessel, the other by a Chinese comprador, and thus 'tally' was kept. The crew of the vessel had no need to go into the hold, the Chinesestevedore A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...s made all snug; and then the hatches were put on and the hatch-covers well battened down, while, without delay, sail was made, the anchor weighed, and the Chinesepilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...took charge to get her ... to sea as soon as possible; for in no business was time more synonymous with money than in the race with the 'new crop.' "It was a sight to see the handling of those ships as they " backed and filled" and tided down the Reaches, sometimes almost grazing the quarter of a vessel at anchor; and, again, just escaping the tail of a mud-bank, while the grizzled old pig-tailed pilot took his bearings, squinted aloft, and in his own pidgeon-English said, 'Haul down jib! ... Shiver the mizzen-topsail! Throw her flat aback!'
Loss of the ship
On June 12, 1891, on a voyage fromReferences
Further reading
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