In the fall of 1850, George Francis Train, Jr., the younger partner of Enoch Train & Co., most likely acting on his older cousin Enoch Train's orders, approached Donald McKay about building a new ship for the firm. This is how he described it in his memoirs that he wrote half a century after the fact:
When the gold fever was getting the country frantic, and everyone apparently wanted to go to California, I said to McKay, "I want a big ship, one that will be larger than the Ocean Monarch" McKay replied, "Two hundred tons bigger?" "No," said I, "I want a ship of 2000 tons." McKay was one of those men who merely ask what is needed. He said he would build the sort of ship I wanted. "I shall call her the Flying Cloud," I said.
George Francis Train, Jr., often referred to Enoch Train as his uncle. They were actually first cousins, twice removed, as their fathers were first cousins. After joining the firm as a junior clerk, he had steadily worked his way up to partnership. The above quoted passage is from his autobiography, My life in Many Lands, and this account may be embellished.
Enoch Train gave Donald McKay a free hand to design the Flying Cloud and this freed McKay's imagination to chase after in his mind just what his ideal of a extreme clipper ship designed for the Cape Horn run should be. The Surprise had been launched two months earlier at Samuel Hall's East Boston shipyard and perhaps Donald McKay was there in attendance and was most certainly familiar with Pook's latest extreme clipper. His ideas intrigued McKay. Pook espoused that a clipper with a full midship section and well-modeled ends was capable of being just as fast as a sharper ship of less carrying capacity. And in heavy seas the fuller bodied ship would have more stability and power and would be even faster than the sharper ship with big deadrise, thus making her the more seaworthy ship as well as carry more cargo.
In hindsight following the launching of the Stag Hound, Donald McKay could see that his first clipper ship, Stag Hound, was quite sharp with a deadrise of 40 inches, and those who attended her launching said that she resembled a yacht more than a commercial vessel.
While the loading of cargo went on at New York, some people thought the Stag Hound "overhatted" and at dangerous risk of being driven under by heavy seas. So much so in some eyes that New York maritime insurance underwriters had charged her owners a premium. Some historians have suggested that in light of this, Donald McKay decided to design the Flying Cloud with a fuller midship section and to scale down her masts and yards.
Soon, Donald McKay began carving away on his lift model constructed of cedar and pine layers of wood and held together with dowels. Meticulously, the Flying Cloud model that he saw in his mind's eye, recalled from his late night dreams, took on the shape that he intuitively desired, sanding and smoothing the model till it met with his exacting approval. This time around, he departed from the V-bottomed hull that he had designed for the Stag Hound and went with a more flat-floored hull.
McKay had learned his lessons well in the construction of water-line half-hull models from the master, Orlando B. Merrill, from his earlier days at Newburyport. Once he was satisfied with his workmanship, he removed the dowels and the rectangular slices of wood, known as "lifts," and one by one transferred the lines of each "layer" of the hull to graph paper called a "sheer plan" by maritime architects. The scale ratio translated out to one quarter of an inch for each foot of the ship, 48 times the original length of the lines. The lines were now ready to be transferred to McKay's huge mold loft that was the size of a ship. It was here that a full side of the Flying Cloud was charted in chalk with a different color of chalk used for each lift layer. The shape of each lift edge's chalkline on the mold loft floor showed the exact water lines of the hull at various depths. With his keen attentive mind and trained eye, Donald McKay had no trouble visualizing his one dimensional colored chalk lines of the Flying Cloud's three-dimensional hull.
McKay's choice of wood for the 208-foot keel was rock maple. This huge keel could not be obtained from one tree trunk, so it was constructed from separate sections using the tongue-and-groove method, fastened together and bolted down with iron driftbolts. Circular grooves were drilled over the length of the keelson and filled with salt pickle as a protection against rot, a method learned from Robert Bennett Forbes who had picked up this ingenious idea while visiting British shipyards.
Slowly, the ribs of the Flying Cloud grew out from the keel and keelson and the shape of the ship gradually emerged and soon a keen-eyed observer such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who often visited and walked around McKay's shipyard, could make out her growing flat-floored hull. Inspired by the sight, he captured it all in a poem. George Francis Train always claimed that BY THE SEASIDE was a poem about the building of the Flying Cloud. Such lofty poetic lines as these leaves little doubt.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
From dawn to dusk the sound of heavy mallets and hammers could be heard throughout the yard, as well as the din of screaming steam saws that cut the planking to the required lengths. The mechanical angle saw that McKay designed cut out the ship's knees to exact specifications. Steam engines chugged away with their derricks hoisting heavy timbers to where they were needed.
Donald McKay was everywhere in the yard, often working alongside his workmen dressed in his business suit and hat, going through stacks of timber or climbing about the scaffolding directing the workmen's efforts here and there, with sawdust in his brown bushy hair. He had piercing black eyes and his skin had a tan leathery look to it from his many long hours spent outside on his feet in the yard under the sun. McKay was hardly ever behind a desk. He was very unpretentious claiming only to be a "mechanic," stating one time at a launching, "My speech is rude and uncultivated, but my feelings, I trust, are warm and true." But in truth, he was more than that, he was a zealous craftsman who fretted over every detail in each and every ship that he built.
He expected no less from his men. To those who met his high standards, he rewarded, and he firmly dealt with and dismissed those who didn't. His loyal workers boasted that the McKay yard was one big family. During the prosperous years of the clipper ship era, McKay could afford to treat his workers well and did. He often bestowed upon a worker's family a loan or a gift. This generous attitude would hurt him in the later years, but while the days were prosperous it would go on. He was very generous in sharing his prosperity as long as it lasted and beyond.
Donald McKay would often wake up in the middle of the night and walk down from Eagle Hill to his yard in the dark, where night watchmen would see him standing alone in the dark beside one of his ships with his arms outstretched caressing the hull. Donald McKay had sought solace in this way in the lonely hours of the night following the death of his wife, Albenia, in December 1848.
Ten months later in October, 1849, Donald McKay married again. This time to Mary Cressy Litchfield of East Boston who had come to be his secretary following Albenia's death.
After the marriage, Mary did her best to continue helping with the running of the shipyard, but she did not posses the astute business sense and rare ship designing talents that Albenia had. She was very good, however, at suggesting names for many of the later McKay clipper ships. She was also a good mother to all of the children.
Already, five of Donald McKay's brothers and their families had moved to East Boston, along with their growing families. His parents were there also. Donald McKay had kept his promise that he made to his family many years ago in 1826 before he had departed Halifax on that lumber schooner for New York.
The Flying Cloud was larger than the Stag Hound by 250 tons, and upon completion had a capacity of 1782 tons, somewhat less than the 2000 tons called for by George Francis Train, Jr., or so claimed. McKay had learned his lessons well from the Stag Hound's dismasting on her maiden voyage, and had scaled down the Cloud's sail plan and increased the thickness of her masts. The original main yard of the Stag Hound had been 86 ft. and Donald McKay scaled back the Flying Cloud's main yard to 82 ft., even though Flying Cloud was larger than her predecessor by sixteen percent.
The work went on at a feverish pace. Soon, the figurehead, a white and gold angel on the wing with a trumpet raised to her mouth, was juxtaposed to the bow of the Flying Cloud. William B. Gleason, a renowned figurehead carver of Boston's Commercial Street, carved the figurehead. At the curve of the bow on both sides of the ship her name Flying Cloud appeared in fine ornate gold gilt letters. In the rush to complete the ship, the trailboards were left off the bow. On her elliptical stern, gold gilt letters spelled out her name Flying Cloud again along with her port of hail.
Rosewood and mahogany paneling ran throughout her cabins, as the cabinetmakers strove to do their job with perfection, putting the finishing touches on this beautiful new ship. She was 235 feet from knightheads to taffrail, and 225 feet on deck. Workmen methodically installed ventilators, cranes, capstans, pumps, winches, and windlasses, all of the latest and finest quality. Her sail loft now stored away three sets of sails of Colt's cotton duck, all cut and sown, the heaviest to handle the screaming westerlies that the Flying Cloud would encounter off Cape Horn. The Flying Cloud was now the largest clipper ship in the world. George Francis Train, Jr. in his memoirs described what happened next:
Not only shipbuilders but the whole world was talking of the Flying Cloud. Her appearance in the world of commerce was a great historic event. No sooner was the Flying Cloud built than many shipowners wanted to buy her; among others the house of Grinell, Minturn & Co. of the Swallow-Tail Line of Liverpool asked what we would take for her. I replied that I wanted $90,000 which meant a handsome profit. The answer came back immediately--"We will take her." We sent the vessel to New York under Captain Creesy while I went on by railway. There I closed the sale, and the proudest moment of my life, up to that time, was when I received a check from Moses H. Grinnell, the New York head of the house, for $90,000.
As usual, this was another one of George Train's embellished accounts of what actually happened, for Enoch Train was the one who would have made such an important decision, but George Francis Train may have actually carried out the transaction in accordance Enoch's wishes. It is known that at that time Enoch Train's finances were again stretched thin with the Stag Hound somewhere at sea off Cape Horn, on her way to San Francisco. To sell the Flying Cloud now was an easy way to make a huge profit without taking any risk and his asking price was high considering that he had only paid McKay $50,000 to build the Flying Cloud.
But the house of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., who already owned another extreme clipper, the Sea Serpent, went for it, no doubt in response to N. L. & G. Griswold's gigantic new clipper, the Challenge, that was taking shape in William Webb's shipyard on the East River in New York. All of the vessels of their Swallowtail fleet were busily engaged in the transatlantic, China, and Cuba trades, and they needed and could afford a new clipper to get into the California trade. All the New York yards were busy building clippers for their competitors, so they had sent their agents out to scout the New England shipyards to find them such a clipper ship.
The sale was made in late March while the Flying Cloud was still on the stocks. Enoch Train was most happy to make such a handsome profit, but he would eventually come to regret parting with the Flying Cloud saying that selling her was the biggest mistake of his life.
The Flying Cloud, Donald McKay's second extreme clipper, was launched on the rainy, windy morning of April 15, 1851. The inclement weather of the past few days led to sparse public notice and this certainly kept the crowd numbers down at the launching. In sharp contrast to the launching of the Stag Hound four months earlier to a cheering crowd of ten thousand people.
Upon the launching of the Flying Cloud, Donald McKay was heard to have remarked: "Maybe the underwriters will not consider this one a 'coffin ship'."
Soon, her topmasts were in place and the workman lost little time in the rigging of the Flying Cloud.
Duncan McLean of The Boston Daily Atlas covered her launching with this lively account:
THE NEW CLIPPER SHIP FLYING CLOUD, OF NEW YORK.
If great length, sharpness of ends, with proportionate breadth and depth, conduce to speed, the Flying Cloud must be uncommonly swift, for in all these she is great. Her length on the keel is 208 feet, on deck 225, and overall, from the knight heads to the taffrail, 235-extreme breadth of beam 41 feet, depth of old 21 1/2, including 7 feet 8 inches height of between-decks, and she will register about 1750 tons. Her keel is of rock maple, in three depths, sided 16 inches, and moulded 44, or 37 inches clear of the garboards; dead rise at half floor 30 inches, rounding of sides 6 inches, and sheer about 3 feet.
Her bow, below the planksheer, is slightly concave, and at the load displacement line may be about 2 inches concave from a straight line. As it rises, however, the lines are gradually modified until they assume the convex, to correspond with her outline on the rail. At eighteen feet from the apron, inside, on the level of the between decks, she is only eleven feet wide. She has the sharpest bow we ever saw on any ship, although she is ten inches taller on the floor than most of the other large clippers which have been built here.
She has neither head nor trail boards, but forming the extreme, where the line of the planksheer and the carved work on the navel hoods terminate, she has the full figure of an angel on the wing, with a trumpet raised to her mouth. The figure is finely designed and exceedingly well executed, and is a beautiful finish to the bow. It is the work of Mr. Gleason, who made the figure-head of the Shooting Star.
Her name in gilded letters is let into the curve of her bow, between the mouldings of the rails; and it also ornaments the quarters.
Her great length, and boldly defined sheer, give her a splendid appearance, broadside on. Her lines aft are fuller than those forward; and her stern, which is elliptical, is small and neat, and is formed from the line of the planksheer. Her name and port of hail are carved and gilded upon it, surrounded by finely designed ornamental work. In her general outline, she bears some resemblance to the Stag Hound, but though her bow is somewhat sharper, yet she is 10 inches fuller on the floor than that splendid ship.
"Her bulwarks are 5 feet high from the deck, or rather her main rail is that height, surmounted by a monkey rail of 16 inches.
She has a topgallant forecastle 30 feet long amidships, fitted for the accommodation of one watch of her crew, and in its after wings are two water closets. Abaft the foremast is a house 41 feet long by 16 wide, and 6 1/2 high, which contains quarters for the other watch of the crew; also the galley, and other apartments. her poop deck is the height of the main rail, 68 feet long, and is surrounded by an open rail supported on turned stanchions. In the front of the poop is a small portico, which protects the entrance to the cabins, of which she has three. The first contains the pantry and state-rooms for the officers, and the second, or great cabin, is beautifully wainscoted with satin wood, mahogany and rose wood, set off with enameled pilasters, cornices, gilt work, &c. The panels are of satin wood, gothic in their form and are set in mahogany frames edged in rose wood. The after cabin is small, and is fitted in the same beautiful style. It contains two useful apartments, and is otherwise neatly arranged.
A few particulars of the style of her construction will show that she is a very strong vessel. We have already stated that her keel was in three depths, moulded 44, and sided 16 inches; her floor timbers average 12 by 17 on the keel, and are bolted in the usual style with 1 1/4 inch copper and iron, and she has 3 depths of midship keelsons, which combined are moulded 45 inches, and sided from 17 to 15, making her nearly 9 feet through the back bone. She has also two depths of sister keelsons, the first 16 by 10, and the second 14 by 10, cross bolted at right angles and diagonally, through the navel timbers. The ceiling on the floor is 4 1/2 inches thick, square bolted, and on the bilge she has two keelsons, each 10 by 16 inches, upon which the lower ends of the hanging knees rest, and all the other ceiling in the hold is 7 inches thick, all scarphed and square fastened. Her lower deck beams are 15 inches square, and those under the upper deck 9 1/2 by 16 inches amidships. The hold stanchions are clasped with iron above and below, and are also kneed to the beams, and to the keelson. Her ends are almost filled with long pointers and hooks, some of the pointers extending over 40 feet along the skin. Her chain lockers are in the hold abaft the foremast, and abaft the mainmast she has a large iron tank for water.
The hanging and lodging knees connected with the beams of both decks are very stout and closely fastened.
The between-decks waterways are 15 inches square, the strake inside of them 10 by 14, and that over them 10 by 16, bolted in superior style. Under the upper deck beams she has a clamp 7 inches thick; the rest of the ceiling between it and the standing strake over the waterways is 5 1/2 inches thick. She has a long and stout hook forward, and the thick work aft is carried round the stern. The stanchions are of oak, turned, and are secured with iron rods, screws and nuts, and the deck planking is of hard pine, 3 1/2 inches thick. Her comings and mast partners are well kneed off, and securely bolted.
The upper deck waterways are 12 by 14 inches, with two thick strakes inside of them; the deck planking is of white pine 3 1/2 inches thick, and the covering board is 6 by 16 inches. her bulwark stanchions are of oak, and between the main and rack rails there is a stout clamp, which extends fore and aft. The main rail is 6 by 16 inches.
Her garboards are 7 inches thick, the next strake 6, the third 5, and the rest of the planking on the bottom 4 1/2 inches. Her wales, of which she has 18 strakes, are 5 1/2 by 7 inches, and she is planked up flush in the planksheer. The boarding of her bulwarks is neatly tongued and grooved, and altogether, both inside and out, she is most beautifully finished. Her sides are as smooth as glass and every moulding and line is carried out with mathematical precision. Outside she is black-inside, pearl color.
Her frame is mostly of superior white oak, and her scantling of southern pine; she is strongly copper fastened, has many locust treenails in her, driven through and wedged in both ends, and her iron fastening is of the best kind. Her hood ends are bolted alternately from either side, through each other and the stem, so that the loss of her cutwater would not affect her safety or cause a leak. The same is true of her aft, so far as the bolting is concerned.
She is seasoned with salt, has air ports below, brass ventilators along the line of her planksheer and in her bits and Emerson's patent ventilators for the purification of the hold. We consider Emerson's ventilators indispensable, for every class of ships, but more particularly for packets, and those trading in warm climates.
The Flying Cloud is a full rigged ship, and her masts rake alike, viz, 1 1/4 inch to the foot. The following are the dimensions of the yards:
MASTS
Diameter, Inches. Length, Feet. Mast-heads, Feet.
Fore..................35 82 13
Top....................17 46 9
Topgallant......11 25 0
Royal.................10 17 0
Skysail..............8 1/2 13 Pole.......5
Main...................36 89 14
Top......................18 51 9 1/2
Topgallant........12 28 0
Royal..................11 19 0
Skysail...............9 1/2 14 1/2 Pole.....5 1/2
Mizen.................26 78 12
Top......................12 1/2 40 8
Topgallant..........9 22 0
Royal....................8 14 0
Skysail.................7 10 Pole.......4
YARDS
Fore.....................20 70 Yard-arms......4 1/2
Top......................15 55 5
Topgallant........10 44 1/2 3
Royal.....................7 32 2
Skysail.................6 1/2 22 1 1/2
Main....................22 82 4 1/2
Top......................17 64 5
Topgallant........15 50 3
Royal...................10 1/2 37 2
Skysail.................7 24 1 1/2
Crossjack...........16 56 4
Mizen topsail...11 1/2 45 4 1/2
Topgallant.........10 33 2 1/2
Royal.....................7 25 1 1/2
Skysail.................6 20 1
The bowsprit is 28 1/2 inches in diameter, and 20 feet outboard; jibboom 16 1/2 inches in diameter, and is divided at 16 feet for the inner and 13 for the outer jib, with 5 feet end; Spanker boom 55 feet, gaff 40, main Spencer gaff 24 feet, and the outer spars in proportion. She is rigged in nearly the same style as the Stag Hound, and looks very well aloft. Messrs. Carnes and Cheesman rigged her. Aloft, as well as below, no expense has been spared to render her a perfect ship.
She was built at East Boston by Mr. Donald McKay, and her admirers are sanguine that she will outsail any vessel in the world. Messrs. Grinell, Minturn & Co., of New York, own her, and intend her for the California and China trade. One-third of her cargo is already engaged for San Francisco, and it is expected that she will soon be filled up. Capt. Creesy, long and favorably known as the commander of the ship Onieda, is her captain, and from his established reputation it is confidently anticipated that he will make her keep away with the fleetest of the clipper fleet.
* * * * *
The Flying Cloud's masts all raked one and one quarter inches per foot, and this design characteristic, common among clippers, allowed the wind to lift the ship rather than pushing it down in the water and reduced the ship's inclination to pitch.
Aloft, the Flying Cloud carried 10,000 yards of canvas, an extraordinary spread of sail.
On April 26, 1851, the steam tug Ajax towed the Flying Cloud out of Boston Harbor to New York with her new captain, Josiah Perkins Creesy, already aboard tuning up her stays and running gear, testing them out and studying the ship responses to the helm. The Flying Cloud was steered by the latest patented gear that was more advanced than the standard gear of the day, in that the patented gear was more compact and the steering was tighter with little lost motion.
The renowned naval architect F. Alexander Magoun described the steering apparatus thus:
The wheel turned a great screw, the two ends of which were threaded in opposite directions. Sleeves travelled on these two threads and operated a yoke on the rudder stock, one pulling, one pushing as the wheel turned over. A ship-shape, oval cover protected the mechanism from the elements and left the deck entirely clear.
The helmsman stood on the wooden grating which offered him a surer footing beside the advantages of being dryer and warmer.
Enoch Train had sold the Flying Cloud "while on the stocks" to Grinnell, Minturn & Company with the stipulation that he would deliver the Flying Cloud to New York for inspection and acceptance. Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy made sure the Flying Cloud was ready for her maiden run around the Horn.
Every possible detail of the Flying Cloud's gear and rigging was checked out methodically by this tried and true man of the sea from Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Creesy was well known to the New York merchant houses and had engaged in the New York - China - East India trade for twelve years, five years from 1845 to 1850 as captain of the Onieda, a Grinnell, Minturn & Company ship. He was known for five swift voyages from New York to Anjier in less than 90 days.
Ship owners and underwriters thought very highly of him, for he always brought the Onieda home intact, and many of those gentlemen were his personal friends. On his last voyage home to New York in March 1851 in command of the Onieda, Creesy turned over command of the ship to his younger brother William.
Creesy had high hopes that the company would find another ship for him to command, preferably one of the new clipper ships that were taking shape in the New York and New England shipyards at the time.
Josiah Perkins Creesy was the son of a New Hampshire carpenter. In his youth, "Perkins," had been a big strapping freckle-faced boy from Marblehead who spent his summer vacations frequently sailing over to Salem on a dory and hanging about the docks.
The sight of an Indiaman sailing into port from half way around the world with monkeys in the rigging and the rich aroma of spices wafting in the salt sea air intrigued him. The amazing variety of ships' figureheads, especially those of wild animals and warriors, fired up his imagination and he held the sea captains of the Indiaman fleet in his highest esteem. There was no way to keep young Perkins away from his heart's desire.
His parents permitted their son to ship before the mast, and he soon steadily advanced through all the grades, and at twenty-three years old became a captain and went on to a long, illustrious career at sea. Now, he was captain of the Flying Cloud, the newest and largest clipper ship the world had yet to see.
On April 28th after a thirty-six hour passage, the Ajax reached New York with the Flying Cloud in tow. They proceeded up the East River under watchful eyes to pier 20 at the west side of Burling slip, located at the foot of Maiden Lane, near by the Grinnell & Minturn & Company offices on Fletcher Street.
The loading of her cargo bound for California would soon commence, all under the supervision of the company's own longshoremen and stevedores, a practice unusual for that time. From her topsail yards hung a large banner proclaiming that this ship was up "FOR CALIFORNIA." For almost a month, the Flying Cloud was the loftiest ship moored along the two mile East River waterfront that stretched from South Street to Corlears Point, but not for long.
On May 24th, William Webb's extreme clipper, the Challenge, was launched from the Webb shipyard a mile or so up the East River and she was larger than the Flying Cloud. Soon, the New York newspapers took notice of the two extreme clippers and began to speculate upon the sailing qualities of both clippers, and how they would stack up against each other in their coming race around the Horn to San Francisco. The stage was set for one of the most thrilling chapters in the era of the clipper ships.
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The Era of the Clipper Ships
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