''Hornet'' was an 1851 extreme clipper in the San Francisco trade, famous for its race with '' Flying Cloud''.

Race with ''Flying Cloud''

''Hornet'' had a two-day head start on ''Flying Cloud'' in their famous 1853 race. She left

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for

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

on April 26, 1853, with ''Flying Cloud'' departing two days later. After the roughly 15,000- nautical mile (27,780-km) voyage around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

, both ships arrived in San Francisco harbor 106 days later at almost the same time, with ''Hornet'' sailing in just 45 minutes ahead of ''Flying Cloud''.

Loss

In 1866, ''Hornet'' left New York City bound for San Francisco under Captain Josiah A. Mitchell with a cargo of

candle A candle is an ignitable wick embedded in wax, or another flammable solid substance such as tallow, that provides light, and in some cases, a fragrance. A candle can also provide heat or a method of keeping time. A person who makes candle ...

s, case

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

, and oil in barrels. During the voyage, she caught fire and sank in the

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on May 3, 1866. The crew left the ship in three open

lifeboats Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen A ...

. The captain′s boat reached

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after 43 days at sea on June 15, 1866, with 14 survivors aboard, but the two other boats disappeared. Mark Twain, on the islands as a special correspondent from the

Sacramento Daily Union ''The Sacramento Union'' was a daily newspaper founded in 1851 in Sacramento, California. It was the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi River before it closed its doors after 143 years in January 1994, no longer able to compete with ' ...

, interviewed several of the survivors and filed the first extensive report.

Images

''Hornet'' clipper ship card

Race with ''Flying Cloud''

Loss

Images

References

Further reading