The James Baines and Champion of the Seas at Plymouth

On her fourth voyage, the James Baines sailed from Liverpool on January 5, 1857, and made the passage to Melbourne in 77 days. The Lightning sailed from Liverpool on February 5th and made the run to Melbourne in 72 days, five days less than her rival.

The James Baines arrived home at Liverpool on July 12, 1857, after a run of 77 days and beat the Lightning by six days over the homeward passage.

Upon the Lightning's arrival at Liverpool in August from her last homeward voyage from Melbourne, Captain Enright gave up his command because his wife was sick and turned over the Lightning to Captain Byrne.

In May 1857, there was a revolt in India among the British Empire's native regiments where the rebels besieged those troops that still remained loyal to the Crown and reinforcements had to be immediately sent from England.

The British Army called upon the Mercantile Marine to provide a number of troopships.

The James Baines and the Champion of the Seas, along with the Lightning, were among the ships chartered during the Supoy Mutiny to transport troops and supplies to Calcutta, India.

The James Baines and the Champion of the Seas were towed from Liverpool to Portsmouth in late July, 1857, by the Resolute and Retriever, powerful Mersey paddle tugs of the New Steam Tug Co. that was managed by James Baines' younger brother John. The Lightning was towed around to Portsmouth three weeks later by the Resolute.

Upon the arrival of the Champion of the Seas and the James Baines at Portsmouth, they were visited in early August by Queen Victoria and her royal party.

ROYAL VISIT

(From the European Times)

The clipper-ships James Baines, Captain McDonnell, and Champion of the Seas, Captain McKirdy, of the Liverpool and Australian Black-Ball Line, belonging to Messrs. James Baines & Co., arrived at Portsmouth on Monday morning from Liverpool. No ships that ever entered Portsmouth harbor created so much curiosity among men-of-war's men as these great merchantmen. High and low have been on board to visit them, and the Port Admiral, Sir George Seymour, expressed his unqualified astonishment at examining the speed logged by these mercantile clippers. The James Baines will take in nearly 1,000 of the 97th and other troops, and the Champion of the Seas, a like number of the 20th foot and other regiments, on Thursday, for India. They are equipped with the latest modern improvements. They are each of about 2,500 tons burden, 45 feet in breadth, and 285 feet in length, and very handsome. We have never had any ships in this harbor (says the Portsmouth correspondent of the Times ) which have created such interest as these, for they have been visited by the best sailing and gunnery officers of the navy, and all have expressed their admiration and astonishment at their capacious stowage, airy and ample accommodations, and the unprecedented speed chronicled in their logs.

Their great fame having reached her Majesty through the public journals and the reports of the authorities, and those ships being now within convenient reach of the court at Osborne, her Majesty on Tuesday morning communicated her desire to the naval and military commanders-in-chief at Portsmouth that the embarkation of the troops might not take place until she had inspected them and the ships destined to carry them to their destination. Accordingly, information was given to Captain McDonnell, of the James Baines and Captain McKirdy of the Champion of the Seas, by the port admiral of the Queen's intention. Each captain got his ship in order for the inspection, and made every preparation to receive her Majesty. Other troops, not going out on those ships, (the 42nd and 34th regiments,) were also commanded to be in review order in the dockyard by half-past five, as the Queen would inspect them prior to going on board the ships. At a quarter to six the royal steam-yacht Fairy, Captain, the Hon. Joseph Denman, having on board the Queen, Prince Consort, the Princess Royal, and Prince Alfred, arrived off Portsmouth harbor. The usual royal salutes were fired by the squadron at Spithead and in harbor, and at six the royal party laded at the new King's stairs of the dockyard, where her Majesty was received by Admiral Sir G. Seymour, K.C.B., Major General the Hon. Y. Scarlett, K.C.B., and staff; Rear Admiral Martin, Col. Foster, R.E., aide-de-camp to the Queen; Lieutenant Colonel Wright, assistant quartermaster general of the southwest district; Capt. Seymour, C.B.; Major Nelson, brigade major; Captain Breton, town major; Dr. Bell, staff surgeon of the district; Lieutenant Hall, director of police; Flag Lieutenants Malcom and Brandreth, etc.

The Royal Marine Artillery kept the ground, and the 42nd and 34th were formed in line from King's stairs to the parade ground leading to the gates, along the face of the storehouses and clock tower, under which a temporary inspecting stage, with standard staff, was placed for the royal circle. The 54th were posted from the Pitchhouse jetty to the Shears jetty, alongside of which the James Baines, Lady Jocelyn, and Champion of the Seas were moored. Her Majesty, having visited the steamship Lady Jocelyn, was conducted by Col. Wright to the James Baines; her Majesty was received by Captain McDonnell, and Mr. T. M. Mackay, the owner, at the gangway, and conducted by them over this noble clipper. Her Majesty personally examined the dry and meat provisions supplied for the officers and troops, and expressed her satisfaction at their excellence. She afterwards ascended to the poop and took a view of the great length of deck, thence descended to the troop deck, and walked round it, perhaps the most wonderful and unexampled between-deck her Majesty ever visited, and which appeared to excite her lively surprise. On taking her leave, her Majesty expressed herself much gratified by the visit. She had no idea that there were such vessels engaged in the merchant service, and complimented Mr. Mackay and the captain individually on the size and equipments of the James Baines and the Champion of the Seas generally. We congratulate Messrs. James Baines & Co. on the high honor which has been paid them, and look forward with some hopes to the time when the vessels now employed in the merchant service of Liverpool will be looked upon with more favor by government officials. For the transport or other service no better ships can be employed and the Thames must look to their laurels.

Both ships were escorted by tugs from Portsmouth on August 8th, and all along the harbor entrance thousands of people gave them an enthusiastic sendoff. In the excitement there was a collision at the harbor entrance where the two departing clippers collided with three brigs and one brig's mast was carried away.

The James Baines and the Champion of the Seas were determined to make a race of it all the way, not only against each other, but against seven steamer transports with screw propellers. The Lightning followed 17 days later.

The day before the Lightning sailed from Portsmouth, a dinner was given on board honoring Captain Enright, her former commander, to whom tribute was paid by Benjamin Disraeli, the Prime Minister, praising Anthony Enright's many accomplishments as a master mariner.

The London Times had this to say about the Lightning:

The Lightning, the most celebrated of the Black Ball Line has been visited by hundreds during the short time she has been here. Our readers do not need to be reminded who or what vessel she is; her name is a household word. She has a regular clipper look, long, low and narrow like a yacht. She is rather heavy aloft, with yards almost sufficient to overpower her with canvas; in fact she is a perfect clipper and one in which the builder has thrown aside the minor points of symmetry to produce a fleet and useful vessel. Her appearance on the water is by no means comparable with that of the James Baines or the Champion of the Seas, but in capacity for stowage and as a safe and rapid vessel, the Lightning is considered without a rival.

Six-hundred and fifty men and officers of the 7th Hussars, under Lieutenant Colonel Haggart, boarded the Lightning and sailed from Portsmouth on August 25, 1857, to chase after her sister clippers and all the others.

The Lightning lived up to her namesake and flew around the Horn of Africa and caught up with her sisters in the Indian Ocean and raced the Champion of the Seas right up to the Calcutta Sandheads arriving at Calcutta on the same day, with the James Baines arriving two days later.

The Lightning made the run in 89 days, the Champion of the Seas in 101 days and the James Baines in 103 days, whereas the average sailing transport passage was 120 days, the full-powered screw steamer passage was 83 days, and the auxiliary screw steamer passage was 96 3/4 days.

The Illustrated London News ran the following account, this excerpt referring to the James Baines:

. . . When (the James Baines was) met by the Onieda, on the 17th of August, on her way to Calcutta with troops, she presented a most magnificent appearance, having in addition to her ordinary canvas, studdingsails, skysails, and moonsail, set and drawing, in all thirty-four sails, a perfect cloud of canvas: the troops all well, and cheering lustily as the vessels passed each other. Her contestant, the Champion of the Seas, was not far astern, both vessels making great headway.

The two ships arrived off the mouth of the Hoogly together 101 days from Portsmouth(*) . It was a fight of friendly rivalry all the distance, and one of the great ocean races over recorded in history.

{* ECS - There is an inaccuracy here. The James Baines arrived in 103 days. }

As soon as the troops debarked, the James Baines and the Champion of the Seas took on the usual Indian cargo of rice, jute, cow hides, and linseed at the Hooghly Docks and sailed for Liverpool.

The James Baines made a swift 77-day passage back to Liverpool and arrived on April 16, 1858. The Champion of the Seas made a swift passage to London and then on to Liverpool.

It is suspected by some maritime historians that the Lightning then took aboard a large number of Indian coolies and sailed for the West Indies for she did not make another Australian passage for the Black Ball Line until December 1858.

The James Baines unloaded cargo at the Huskisson Dock on the Mersey and her 'tween decks cargo was emptied. The lower hatches were taken off on April 21st and all seemed fine. Smoke was noticed the following morning coming out of her main hold and a fire rapidly consumed her and she burned to the water's edge. The Illustrated London News ran the following account of the fire:

The fire burst out on Thursday morning, 22nd April, 1858. Although the engines were brought into play as rapidly as possible, there was no visible effect produced; and four or five times the firemen, whilst endeavouring to penetrate the interior of the vessel so as to get at the seat of the fire, were driven back by the density of the smoke. It then became necessary to cut away the spars, rigging, stays, etc., which was done promptly and after some time it was deemed advisable to scuttle the ship as the exertions from the deck to extinguish the fire seemed unavailing. There was plenty of water in the dock at the time, but at the receding of the tide the vessel grounded and the fire seemed to have run through the entire length of the ship, for the smoke burst out of all parts and baffled every exertion. In the forenoon the masts were an anxiety, their fall being anticipated, and in the afternoon this happened, the main mast and mizen mast falling with terrible crashes upon the quay and in their decent destroying the roofs of two sheds. At 9 o'clock at night the inner shell of the hull, for nearly the whole length of the vessel, was rapidly burning, the flames rising with fury between the ribs, which had connected the outer and inner hull, the intervening spaces being to the spectators like so many flues; and iron bolts, released by the flames, were dropping one after the other into the hold, where in the fore part of the ship, particularly the uppermost portion of the cargo, was being fast consumed.

At first great alarm was felt for the neighbouring shipping, several of the steamers of the Cunard fleet being in the same dock, but no material damage was sustained by them, and they, with others, were soon as possible removed out of harm's way.

"The value of the James Baines and cargo is estimated at £170,000. The vessel became a complete wreck, looking, according to one account, like a huge cinder in the Huskisson Dock; and very little of the cargo was saved.

The cause of the fire was thought to be spontaneous combustion. The insurance policy of the James Baines had expired three days before and James Baines & Co. had to take the loss. The tragic burning of the James Baines was considered to be a national disaster. The wreckage was auctioned off and left where it lay and converted into the old landing where Atlantic steamer passengers debarked at Liverpool and walked over what was left of one of the finest sailing ships the world had ever seen.

Captain McDonnell was devastated by the loss of his ship and retired to his widowed mother's cottage at Glengarriff a broken-hearted man. His final end came soon after he came down with pneumonia after helping out with the salvaging of a brig that gone ashore during a bitter gale. His mother lived on for many years along with a saucy magpie that McDonnell had brought back from Australia. For McDonnell's many years of valuable service, James Baines & Co. presented his mother with a huge painting of the James Baines.

* * * * *

The Champion of the Seas first docked in London to discharge her crew before returning to Liverpool where she again joined the Black Ball Fleet and sailed for Melbourne in August 1858 and would continue to provide loyal service over that route for many years right up to the fall of 1868. Thomas Harrison and Thomas Sully Stowe bought her in 1866 for £9750 at a time of commercial depression as a favor to James Baines & Co. and they chartered her for three more voyages. After which she entered into the general trade tramping around the world for the next six years.

During a leaking voyage from St. Johns, New Brunswick to England, she was forced to make for Boston to discharge part of her cargo where upon rotting timbers were discovered. Her Captain, J. J. Josselyn, refused repairs and instead took on board an engine and two steam pumps and continued on with the voyage, but was forced to put into Queenstown in leaky condition for emergency repairs before sailing on to Liverpool.

She was sold again in 1874, this time to A. Cassels of Liverpool for £7500. Once repaired, she sailed for Hong Kong with Captain Wilson in command who took her from Hong Kong across the Pacific to San Francisco in 39 days.

From there, the Champion of the Seas sailed for Callao and 45 days later arrived there on October 5th, 1875. The Champion of the Seas departed Callao with a full cargo of guano for Cape Horn, where she was abandoned in a leaking condition as her pumps choked and gave out and she began to sink.

Fortunately, the British barque Windsor was also there off Cape Horn and rescued the crew. This once proud clipper of the Black Ball Line had come to an inglorious end and on January 3, 1876, slid beneath the waves at the bottom of the world.

The Lightning burning in Geelong Harbor, Australia

The Lightning resumed her service to the Black Ball Line in December 1858 and continued to make a number of fine passages over the years. But by then the boom years of the gold rush were over following the financial bust of 1857 and it took longer to round up cargoes and passengers while in port.

Record breaking voyages were no longer called for like in the early days and her owners now tried to save money with smaller crews and cut down spars due to the less prosperous economic conditions.

The Lightning, like all clipper ships by the 1860's, was past her prime and from that point on only made one voyage a year in service to the Black Ball Line. By 1862, she was badly strained and water-soaked but still carried a cargo of wool and copper back to Liverpool from Australia that year even though upon her departure from Melbourne she scrapped over some rocks as she neared Philip Heads while the pilot was still aboard, but continued on with the voyage against the better judgement of her passengers.

After many years of service in the Australian trade, many of the Liverpool emigrant clippers ended their careers with a voyage to the Chinchas for a load of guano to take around the Horn to England. Then to spend their final days in the Canadian lumber trade hauling lumber from the St. Lawrence and the Maritime Provinces to Liverpool. Such was the case with the Marco Polo, Red Jacket, Flying Cloud, and other old clippers.

The Lightning was not so lucky. On October 31, 1869, the Lightning was alongside the pier at Geelong, Australia, and had taken on 4,000 bales of wool and was ready to haul off from the wharf. When a spontaneous combustion fire broke out from the forehold at 1:30 in the morning and the flames quickly spread despite gallant efforts from the crews of the Argo, Aboukr, and Laanarkshire to put out the fire.

The Lightning seemed doomed and there was a danger that the wharf might catch fire, so the Lightning was towed away from the wharf while a party of carpenters came aboard in a frantic effort to scuttle her and save what they could of her furniture, gear, boats, sails, and stores. The flames grew more intense and soon the iron foremast and main topmast melted in their steps and came toppling down, forcing some of the men to jump over the side as the Lightning drifted free and clear and swung to her anchor.

A desperate attempt was made to scuttle her by pounding away at her with two 32-pounders from the wharf 300 yards away with most of the rounds missing her. The rounds that hit her did more damage than good and the holes blasted through the hull caused the wind to fan the flames even higher and soon the entire ship was engulfed in flames.

The Lightning burned all day long and sank at sundown, as the sun disappeared on the horizon, and the once lofty clipper that had electrified the world in her earlier days sank in Geelong Harbor beneath the sea.

The Red Jacket

The Red Jacket remained a favorite with the traveling public for her many years of service with the White Star Line on the Australian run and acknowledged by many as the handsomest vessel in the fleet if not the fastest. This was due to the fact that she had damaged her bow during one of her voyages and this slowed her down a bit.

Passenger traffic to Australia was slowing down as well and the Red Jacket began making occasional voyages to other ports. In 1865 she was reported to have visited Calcutta.

In 1868, the Red Jacket was sold and entered into the timber trade running back and forth between Quebec and London and engaged in that trade right into 1882.

The Red Jacket had a few mishaps over those years. She was coming to an anchorage in the Downs on January 20, 1871, when she fouled a barque and her jibboom was lost. Another time, she was crossing the Atlantic and her foretopmast was carried away and the mainmast sprung. She collided with the Eliza Walker in 1878 and sank her but was able to save the Eliza Walker's crew.

The Red Jacket was sent out to Cape Verde and served out her last days as a coal hulk.

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