The Donald McKay

Donald McKay was held is such high esteem by James Baines that Baines decided to name the last ship of his famous Black Ball Quartette after him. The Donald McKay was launched in January 1855 and upon sliding down the ways into the bay at East Boston, she became the second largest merchant sailing ship in the world at 2594 tons.

The Donald McKay was almost as large as the rebuilt Great Republic and measured out at 269 x 47 x 29 feet with a deadrise at half-floor of 18 inches. The Donald McKay was much fuller in the ends than her sister ships and had more cubic capacity due to her decidedly convex lines as the Donald McKay was not as concave below and therefore not as extreme.

The ship had the look of a clipper as well as the appearance of a ship of war. The great length and stately appearance of this clipper suggested stability and the promise of being a fast seaboat. In design, she more resembled the Champion of the Seas and was not as sharp-ended as the James Baines or Lightning.

Her carrying capacity was greater than her sister ships and therefore more profitable. Her pitch-pine mainmast was the heaviest of any ship hailing from Liverpool and was heavily banded with iron. Her masts did not have the rake of her sister ships and were nearly upright.

She flew 17,000 yards of sail from her Forbes' patent double topsail yards, slightly more canvas than the rebuilt Great Republic, which proved invaluable in squally weather for a ship of this size and increased her seaworthiness. Her dead weight carrying capacity was also a little more than the Great Republic. Her main yard was 100 feet. The length of her keel was 257.9 feet. Her figurehead was that of a bearded Scottish Highlander in the tartan dress of the McKay clan.

Captain Henry Warner, the Englishman who had lived in East Boston for years and had commanded the Sovereign of the Seas on her first charter run to Australia for James Baines & Co., took command of the Donald McKay and sailed from Boston on February 21, 1855, with her builder, Donald McKay aboard.

She sailed with a crew of fifty, most of them described as "useless wharf rats," as sailors were scarce that winter in Boston. Only eight of them were seamen capable of going aloft or steering the ship. The Boston crimps had picked them up from the boarding houses and delivered them bundled in the usual drunken condition and fashion. Many were seasick over the course of the voyage and stayed below.

On February 27th, the Donald McKay encountered strong winds out there on the North Atlantic and ran 421 nautical miles in 24 hours. The log account reads:

First part, a strong gale from N.W.; middle part, blowing a hurricane from W.N.W., ship scudding under topsails and foresail at the rate of 18 knots; latter part, still blowing from W.N.W., with heavy rain squalls and very heavy seas running.

The Donald McKay ran to Cape Clear, Ireland, in 12 days and made Fastnet Rock the next day. In the Channel, her fast passage was slowed down by strong easterly winds and a pilot did not come aboard at Point Lynas until March 10th to guide the Donald McKay to her new home on the Mersey at the Liverpool docks after a passage of 17 days. The new Black Ball clipper was immediately put on the berth for Melbourne. Donald McKay expressed himself as well satisfied with her.

There was, of course, the usual déjeuner that was well attended by the leaders of the Liverpool shipping and business community. The American consul Nathaniel Hawthorne was again invited and was thankful that this time he was not asked to speak.

The principal guest was a friend of Thomas Miller Mackay, the noted archaeologist Austen Layard, M.P., and Layard and Hawthorne hit it off rather well. By all accounts the luncheon was a cheerful affair that went on for four hours.

The Donald McKay left on her maiden voyage to Melbourne on June 6th and made a 81-day passage to Port Phillip arriving there on August 26th.

She sailed from Melbourne on October 3rd on her homeward voyage to Liverpool, with 104,000 ounces of gold in her strong room, arriving there on December 28, 1855, after an 86-day voyage. From a diarist's account it was learned that it must have been, indeed, an exciting passage; for in the Roaring Forties the Donald McKay was forced to run the iceberg gauntlet, but fortunately the weather off Cape Horn was fine when she made her eastward passage around to the Atlantic and headed north for England. As she crossed the line she was becalmed for a time.

The Donald McKay came up on Cape Clear on December 23rd when a fierce gale came on and the giant clipper was almost blown up on the Skellig rocks and lost, but somehow by a determined effort of her captain and crew she managed to avoid the lee shore and the rocks to reach open water and escape destruction. The thankful first-class passengers celebrated Christmas aboard ship with great zeal enjoying a dinner with turkey and champagne.

By the time the Donald McKay arrived at Liverpool on December 28th, cotton prices were on the rise and James Baines deemed it profitable to send the recently returned clipper sailing off to Mobile, Alabama, in February 1856 for a cargo of cotton. So did the owners of the Red Jacket, the White Star Line. The winner of the cotton race is not known.

The Donald McKay spent the next 12 or 13 years as a Black Ball Liner on the Australian run and although she never made any remarkably fast passages as her sister clippers did, her passages were consistently good. Her outward run average was 83 days and her homeward run average was 85 days.

The Donald McKay sailed for Melbourne again in October 1856, picking up the passengers of the Black Ball liner Fortune, a New Brunswick ship bought by James Baines & Co. in 1852, that had gone ashore that previous May on the Irish coast at Dundrum Bay on her passage to Hobart, Australia, with 290 passengers aboard. Two passengers had drowned in the effort to ferry the passengers ashore, but the rest had made it to shore safety and all had returned to Liverpool and most were anxious to continue on with their passage to Australia.

On her third voyage, 619 passengers came aboard the Donald McKay, 79 of them children, and the Donald McKay sailed on July 8. 1857, and made an 83-day passage to Melbourne. William Thompson, a County Durham sawyer, kept a diary and wrote the following account.

Wednesday 15th July, We have a fine sailing wind from the North this morning. Our noble and gallant ship Donald McKay with her 15,000 yards of canvas and stunsails in addition is ploughing the main most majestically. Saturday 18th July, Travelling at ten knots per hour. We now feel the sun excessively in the middle of the day. This morning an unwelcome guest made this appearance through the window into the bed of a man opposite our berth which turned out to be a pork pig. After a hearty chase between decks the weird intruder was captured and put back in her own bed. Anything for a change to break the monotony of a long sea voyage.

The Donald McKay's great carrying capacity proved to be a boon for she was able to take on a large cargo of Australian wool and copper ore along with many casks of tallow.

The Donald McKay served as a troop transport on one occasion in February 1860, and conveyed 1000 passengers consisting of troops and their families to Mauritus to reinforce the garrison, and sailed from Portsmouth to Mauritus in 70 days. Ninety crewmen sailed on this voyage, an unusually high number over the fifty or sixty normally required and it is thought that some of them were stewards that looked after the needs of the soldiers.

On her homeward passage, a long one of 106 days, the Donald McKay carried home a large cargo of 9500 bags of sugar.

Upon her return to Liverpool, the Donald McKay returned to service in the Black Ball Line and over the following years made many consistently good voyages. She had been remarkably accident free for many years, but that ended on the night of March 13-14, 1864.

The Donald McKay was on the last leg of the homeward passage and had just picked up her pilot off Dungeness. The Donald McKay was sailing close-hauled in the English Channel on a clear night after paying off on the starboard tack. The barque Albina was a half a mile ahead and was close-hauled on the starboard tack as well, as the Donald McKay steadily closed the distance.

The officer of the watch aboard the Donald McKay failed to see the barque as did the helmsman and lookout. The helmsman of the Albina saw the giant clipper approaching on her stern in the night and right before the collision put the helm down hard-a starboard knowing that the collision was inevitable and this swift maneuver lessened the impact as the giant clipper collided with the barque. The damage inflicted amounted to £15,000 and the Admiralty Court held the Black Ball Line liable for the sum of £15,000.

Two years later in 1866, the Donald McKay was sold to Thomas Harrison and chartered back to the Black Ball Line and for two more years she sailed regularly from Liverpool to Melbourne, departing on her last passenger voyage in August, 1868. Upon her return to Liverpool, the Donald McKay was deemed too old to continue in the passenger trade

After extensive repairs, she carried on as a general trader until 1874, when she was sold for £8750 to J. S. de Wolf of Liverpool. Who then sold her to an ex-Black Ball commander, William Williams of London, who re-sheathed her hull.

Captain Richards took command of the Donald McKay and in 1875 under charter by the government, conveyed the "Connaught Rangers" to Bombay. And returned to England with another regiment without losing a man for which a grateful government presented Captain Richards with a handsome testimonial for his loyal services.

Later on that year, the Donald McKay sailed for Callao to fill her holds with guano and returned to England. The Donald McKay was idled for a time due to the economic conditions. The ship at last sailed for Philadelphia in 1878, her first return to the United States, for a cargo of petroleum, the largest ever.

The Donald McKay was still rated F1 at Lloyds, but because her owner could not find continuous work for her she was sold again on September 13, 1879, to a German firm of Bremerhaven sailmakers, Bertus Bartling & Co.

She sailed under German colors out of Bremen under the same name between Bremen and New York for a number of passages. Whenever the Donald McKay arrived in the East River she always attracted the notice of those in the shipping community, especially from those who were around in the early glory days of the clipper ships.

By the early 1880s, the Donald McKay was said to be a leaky ship and the pumps had to be kept going all the time. Her topmasts were reported by German sources to be stepped abaft her lower masts.

Bertus Bartling & Co. sold her to a fellow Bremen shipowner, Carl Brewer, in 1886, and the Donald McKay served out her last two years as a coal hulk running back and forth between Madeira and Bremerhaven, her final resting place, where her figurehead of the McKay Highlander was removed and she was broken up after being set on fire. The figurehead remained in a Bremen garden until the 1930s and then it was transferred to the Mystic Seaport Maritime Museum where it remains on display to this day.

ECS - The figurehead below is said to be modelled after Sergeant Donald McKay of the 76th Regiment of Macdonald Highlanders. He was Donald McKay's grandfather. Sergeant Donald McKay is my great great great great grandfather. - Don Ross

Her final days were recorded in a poem:

They hogged her back and ruined her speed,

And broke her heart with their itching greed,

So they sold her in the coasting trade

To carry coals till a grave she made.

W. B. M. in the Passing of the Clipper.

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