As the California clippers arrived home, one by one, upon completion of their first round the world voyages in 1852, it was discovered that nearly all of them were in need of a pretty thorough overhaul aloft. Such was the case with the Sea Serpent, Eclipse, Stag Hound, Witchcraft, and Tornado, as well as the Flying Cloud. All these clippers were re-rigged with sturdier spars and heavier rigging.

The rigging of the Flying Cloud upon her return in April 1852, was dismantled and samplings of her worn fishings, lashings, and seizings were removed and taken to the Astor House where they were exhibited.

Grinnell & Minturn & Co. had the log book from the Flying Cloud for the San Francisco run printed in gold letters on white silk, and gave away copies to their friends.

Upon arrival back in New York, Captain Creesy and his wife avoided notoriety and escaped to Marblehead.

Donald McKay was keen to take note of all the meticulous records kept by the Creesy's concerning the damage sustained by the main mast over her around-the-world voyage. The lessons learned from the wear and tear of this voyage would go a long way toward the sturdier construction of future McKay clippers.

Captain Creesy called for changes aloft to get more sail area "without going up high to get it," and called for longer yards on the foremast to match the yards on the replaced mainmast, which in Creesy's eyes would move slightly foreword the center of effort of the canvas.

With her main mast repaired at last, her new foremast yards in place and her re-rigging completed, the Flying Cloud soon began to take on cargo for another run around the Horn. Talk had been building up of a coming race between the Flying Cloud and the N. B. Palmer, the 1490-ton clipper under the command of Captain Charles Low. The N. B. Palmer had made her maiden voyage around the Horn the previous year before the Flying Cloud-Challenge race, and had arrived at San Francisco on August 21, 1851, with a very respectable passage of 107 days.

On the second leg of her first voyage around the world, the N. B. Palmer had beaten the time of the Flying Cloud's passage to China by 10 days and the passage home to New York by 10 days.

The Flying Cloud had sailed all the way around the world on her first voyage with her main mast in a weakened condition. This undoubtedly was the reason why the Flying Cloud did not make better time on the last two legs of the voyage and lost these races to the N. B. Palmer. Now, both clippers were loading cargo for another run around the Horn.

Captain Low of the N. B. Palmer was most certainly looking forward to another race against the Flying Cloud for he thought his ship was the faster clipper for the China trade and in any trade going before the wind. But "On the wind the Flying Cloud can beat us a mile or even more an hour."

The Flying Cloud cleared New York for her second run around the Horn on May 14, 1852 with Captain Creesy still in command and his wife, Eleanor, still the navigator, and sailed on down the Atlantic.

The Staffordshire under Captain Josiah Richardson, and the Shooting Star under Captain Judah P Baker, had both cleared Boston Harbor 11 days earlier on May 3rd for two very fast passages around the Horn of 102 days and 106 days respectively. With time and winds in their favor, the Flying Cloud would never get the chance to catch up to them to make a contest out of it.

The Gazelle, a tea clipper not expressly designed for the Cape Horn run, was launched on January 12, 1851, from the shipyard of William Webb, and had a slow maiden voyage 135-day run around the Horn to San Francisco.

The Gazelle, 182 x 38 x 21 feet, 1244 tons, was the sharpest clipper that Webb ever built. She was strongly built and had great deadrise as well as a small midship section with little bilge to speak of. Not a good trait when trying to maintain stability in heavy seas, but William Webb had not designed her and thought of the Gazelle as "a yacht, but no merchantman; she will carry but little cargo and in heavy seas and weather will be uncomfortable and make poor time."

Webb thought of her as more suitable for the tropics and the run across the Pacific and Indian oceans over the passage to New York from China and this proved to be true. Captain Dollard had replaced Captain Henderson at San Francisco on the Gazelle's first voyage. The Gazelle did not live up to her owner's expectations on her first Cape Horn run, but her passage across the Pacific was swift. And the passage home from China, spurred on by favorable monsoon winds around the Cape of Good Hope, a swift passage as well.

She sailed on May 18, 1852 on her second voyage around the Horn.

The Flying Cloud sailed on May 14th, and the N.B. Palmer sailed on May 22nd. The N.B. Palmer found the winds and the weather in her favor and crossed the line three days behind the Flying Cloud.

The N.B. Palmer caught up with the Flying Cloud soon after crossing the line, whereas Creesy did his best to lose her. The N. B. Palmer under the command of a determined Captain Charles Low again caught up with the Flying Cloud off the coast of Brazil. Captain Low captured the encounter in his biography:

I had come up with her (Flying Cloud), beating her ten days thus far and only forty days out I felt very proud of it. . .Captain Creesy hailed me and wanted to know when I left New York. I replied, "Ten days after you." He was so mad, he would have nothing more to say. My ship was now at a standstill, and he was going ahead at full speed, and he ran ahead of me. Shortly after I filled away.

[ECS - Actually, the N.B. Palmer left New York eight days after the Flying Cloud ]

A passenger who was aboard the Flying Cloud on that voyage describes the encounter thus in this letter that appeared in the New York Herald:

To the Editor of the Herald:

Reading the Boston Semi-Weekly Atlas of the 10th inst., I saw an account of the ship Flying Cloud's late passage to San Francisco; and in the remarks it says: 'We have upon a former occasion shown how the Flying Cloud once overhauled the clipper N. B. Palmer, ran her out of sight in less than twenty hours, and beat her from the latitude of Rio Janeiro to San Francisco, twenty-one days.'

I was in the ship Flying Cloud on that voyage, and the two ships fell in company in the latitude of the Rio de la Plata- the Palmer being ahead, having sailed ten days after us in the Cloud. The wind was light at daylight, and we had been near Cuba all the night before. During the forenoon the breeze sprang up from the Northeast, and both ships made sail for a race-the N. B. Palmer outsailing the Flying Cloud while the wind was exactly aft, and Capt. Low finding his ship outsailing the Cloud, hove to speak. The Cloud came up and both masters bid each other success on the passage, and parted for a race just at twelve, noon. The Palmer hauled two points to the westward for a side wind; there Capt. Low missed, for that was just what the Flying Cloud wished for. During the night the wind freshened, so that by four in the morning the Cloud had all studding sails taken in; at eight o'clock (just good daylight) the Palmer was astern foot of her, foretopsail in sight, with his foretopmast studding sail set. It shut in thick with rain before nine o'clock and of course she was lost to sight; and that is how the Flying Cloud outsailed her so fairly in less than twenty hours. The N. B. Palmer put into Valparaiso and laid off there ten days.

The clipper ship Gazelle sailed from New York three days after the Flying Cloud, on the same voyage. Came in sight in our wake before we crossed the line, and I could just see her from the mizzen topgallant yard at nine o'clock in the morning, and at six o'clock the same evening could see her hull from the deck of the Cloud; next day still nearer. Shifted anchors on board the Cloud, guns, etc., and altered our course and got out of sight as soon as possible.

Let the New York clippers have their just due. Although I am a Bostonian and master of a Boston ship, and I have been in two clippers of the late Jacob Bell's build, besides being in the Cloud, I go in for the second side of a story and fair play.

(Signed) P. W. G.

The July 2nd log account of the N. B. Palmer tells of the incident:

July 2. Lat. 36.01° S., Long.50, 50° W. Moderate breeze. At 2 P.M. spoke the Flying Cloud after heaving to for two hours for her to come up. Stiff breezes and hauling to the Southward, sent down skysail yards and royal stunsail booms.

By the following morning, the Flying Cloud had pulled 12 miles ahead and by mid-afternoon she was gone on the horizon. Both clippers encountered fierce westerlies off Cape Horn. Captain Creesy was fortunate to have a fine crew aboard for the second voyage and claimed that "they worked like one man and that man a hero."

Captain Low aboard the N. B. Palmer was plagued with a mutinous crew and a week after his encounter with the Flying Cloud, Captain Low's First Mate was shot by one of the mutineers. His Second and Third mates were not much help and he alone had to maintain order over a stubborn disobedient crew for eighteen days off Cape Horn. Over which time he did not sleep below and slept in the corner of the deckhouse in his wet clothes getting little sleep over the course of the ordeal.

After rounding the Horn, Low was forced to quit the race and put into Valparaiso, where he sent the mutineers ashore to be sent home and tried for attempted murder on the high seas. Twenty men also deserted the ship and this delayed Low even further and the N. B. Palmer did not reach San Francisco until three weeks after the Flying Cloud arrived at the Golden Gate on September 6. 1852, after a 115-day passage, the third fastest passage of all the clippers that had departed East Coast ports over the month of May 1852.

. The N. B. Palmer arrived after 126 days, 120 days at sea, and six at Valparaiso. The Gazelle arrived after a passage of 136 days.

The following is Captain Low's log account of the mutiny aboard his ship:

July 9, Lat. 47.59° S., Long. 56.27° W. Wind South and variable. Close reefed Topsails. Midnight single reefed the Topsails. At midnight on turning out heard someone say call the Captain. Give me a pistol and I will shoot him. Met Mr. Haines, who handed me a musket and told me not to go on deck, that one of the men had a revolver and had shot him through the leg. Went on deck the mates were armed with muskets and all hands were sent on the poop, where they were examined one by one and two of them were put in Irons, but soon after the man called Semons came & gave himself up as being the one that fired at the mate. I put him in Irons and let the other go. At 8 A.M., finding that Dublin Jack had knocked the 2nd and 3rd officers down with a handspike while engaged in placing Semons in Irons, I had him Ironed and then called all hands and flogged Semons and Dublin Jack, giving Semons a dozen and a half and Dublin Jack twenty lashes. They were then placed in the Booby Hatch in Irons. Mr. Haines was shot in the leg about six inches above the knee. Light airs. Stiff Gales. Double Reefs.

Upon the unloading of her cargo at San Francisco, the Flying Cloud sailed for Hong Kong. Her westward departure across the Pacific was remarkably swift for she passed Honolulu 8 days, 8 1/2 hours out, and reached her destination in 40 days.

From Whampoa, the Flying Cloud sailed to Macao Roads with a cargo of Canton tea on December 1, 1852, and from there sailed the next day for New York. On December 14th, the Flying Cloud cleared the Sunda Straits and ran for the Cape of Good Hope, where for 14 days she experienced a number of gales followed by lighter weather and calms. The Flying Cloud arrived back at New York on March 8, 1853, with a 96-day run and on December 21st logged a best day's run of 382 nautical miles.

After sailing from Whampoa on her homeward passage, the N. B. Palmer brushed with disaster in the Java Sea when on February 28, 1853, while in the vicinity of Watcher Island, sailing along at eight knots, she ran up on a reef known as Broussa Shoal.

Captain Low managed to kedge her off into deeper water but the bottom of her hull was badly damaged and taking in seven inches of water each hour as the clipper limped on to Batavia to make repairs. Upon the discharge of her cargo and examination of her hull, Captain Low discovered that "a piece of coral nearly two feet in diameter fell out of the beam ends, which, had it come out at sea, would have caused the ship to founder in less than an hour."

A month later, Captain Low began to reship the N. B. Palmer's cargo as most of his crew came down with Java Fever and were too ill to sail, and Captain Low took on a new crew from a condemned ship to complete the passage to New York.

During March and April the Flying Cloud took on cargo for her third run around the Horn. Over at a neighboring pier was the Hornet, the big Westervelt & Mackey clipper loading cargo for her second run around the Horn. The Hornet was smaller than the Flying Cloud. She measured out at 203 feet in length, with a breadth of beam of 38 feet, and a depth of hold of 21 feet, 10 inches. She was said by historians to be "a very sharp, flush-deck vessel and one of the finest and best constructed of all clipper ships."

On her maiden voyage around the Horn in 1851, she was loaded down with very heavy cargo that included two big boilers and smokestacks intended for the steamer Senator. They were lashed down on her deck and that made for a very cumbersome passage under Captain Lawerence.

The Hornet faced head winds and calms all the way to Cape Horn, and it took her all of 73 days to reach the Horn. For the next 17 days fierce westerlies greeted the Hornet head on and it was a most turbulent passage around "Cape Stiff." The turbulence was so much so that the boilers and stacks had to be thrown overboard in the middle of a gale. Captain Lawerence was sick most of the time and there was much trouble with the crew. Upon arrival at San Francisco on January 23, 1852, after a 155-day passage, the mate and steward were arrested.

The Hornet then sailed from San Francisco for Panama with 300 passengers aboard bound for the Isthmus, and from there crossed the Pacific to Hong Kong and Whampoa, and returned around the Cape of Good Hope to New York; where her owners soon put her up for another run around the Horn.

On April 28, 1853, the Flying Cloud departed the Grinnell, Minturn & Co.'s East River Swallow Tail pier 19 in tow with the tide on her third voyage to San Francisco. At 4:30 in the afternoon, the Flying Cloud cast off her line at Sandy Hook where she came upon the Hornet, that had departed the East River just an hour or two before. The Hornet lay becalmed almost as if she lay in waiting for the larger clipper to catch up for what was to be "the closest sailing match in the history of Cape Horn" as the two clippers sailed out into the North Atlantic together.

Captain William Knapp recollection of the encounter was entered in the log:

April 28-At 2 P.M. dischg pilot & tug off S Hook. Wind S. by E & Calm for 2 days.

April 29-Lat 40.20 N Lon 70.10 W-At meridian clipper ship in sight to S.W. . . . Later recognized the Flying Cloud bringing up the breeze.

The Flying Cloud covered 3,672 miles and crossed the line In 17 days on May 15th with skysails set after having passed the Hornet on the second day out.

The Hornet had gotten off to a slower start and crossed the line in 19 days. The Flying Cloud led the Hornet around Cape St. Roque as the two clippers ran on down the South Atlantic. Where the Hornet caught the best of the S.E. trade winds and crossed 50° S. three days ahead of the Flying Cloud.

At the Horn, both ships encountered winter westerly gales. The Flying Cloud was the larger of the two clippers and this played to her advantage and she rounded the Horn in nine days, the Hornet taking 14 days.

In the South Pacific side of Cape Horn the Flying Cloud still encountered heavy head gales, which on June 24th tore her foretopmast staysail to pieces. Later on that dark night, the squalls washed chief officer Gibbs and a seaman off the topgallant forecastle into the sea as on Gibbs' initiative they were attempting to haul down the shredded staysail and both men were lost. The dark stormy seas made it impossible to save them as the Flying Cloud was going along at 10 knots.

The Flying Cloud lost her jibboom and more sails on June 27th and one of her boats was smashed.

The Flying Cloud crossed 50° S. in the Pacific seven days ahead of the Hornet. But from that point on, the Hornet flew up the Pacific and shortened the Flying Cloud's lead by two days by the time the Hornet crossed the line at 113° W. and from there Captain Knapp charted a direct course to the Golden Gate.

Whereas Creesy, who had crossed the line with the Flying Cloud three degrees to the east of her rival, then took her west out to longitude 140° 43' and north to latitude 38° 30' in a wide arc that added greater distance to her passage.

The fog was thick off the Golden Gate when the Hornet arrived on August 11th, 12 hours ahead of the Flying Cloud. The Hornet was forced to wait until the following day, August 12, 1853, and led the Flying Cloud into San Francisco Harbor 45 minutes ahead of her. Both clippers anchored off North Beach. The sight of the Hornet waiting at the Heads upset Creesy very much and for perhaps this reason Creesy did not fill out and send along the special abstract ship's log to Maury as most clipper ship captains did to supply information to be used in Sailing Directions and Wind and Currents Charts.

The August 13, 1853 edition of the San Francisco HERALD summed up the race:

Yesterday the clipper ships Hornet and Flying Cloud arrived at this port 105 days from New York. The Hornet came in about forty minutes ahead of the Flying Cloud, having left New York on the same day, the Hornet several hours ahead. Outside the Heads at New York she was becalmed until the Flying Cloud came up, when they started together, and have reached their destination almost simultaneously-an extraordinary coincidence. The Hornet was nineteen days in reaching the Equator and the Flying Cloud seventeen. The Flying Cloud, it will be recollected, has made the quickest passage to this port on record. . . . These passages are the best that have been made this season, and considering all the circumstances, they may be considered as excellent.

The Eclipse and the John Land, clippers that the Hornet and the Flying Cloud had encountered off Cape Horn, arrived 5 days and 14 days later, respectively with 119-day and 126-day passages. Other clippers that had sailed from New York and Boston around the Horn around the same time were the Shooting Star, Cleopatra, Victory, John Land, Antelope, Celestial Empire, Ino, West Wind, and the Anglo-Saxon. The Anglo-Saxon, a Downeast clipper built at Rockland, Maine, not to be confused with Donald McKay's packet of the same name.

The White Squall sailed from Philadelphia with a 121-day passage to the Golden Gate.

Over the first ten months of 1853, 131 clipper ships sailed from East Coast ports and only the Oriental and the Phantom had faster passages of 101 days and 104 days respectively. The Flying Dutchman had a 106-day passage.

The Hornet then sailed for Callao for a cargo of guano and proceeded on back around the Horn to Philadelphia.

On September 5th, the Flying Cloud sailed from San Francisco in ballast back around the Horn. Twelve days out, she experienced heavy squalls, which twisted her rudder head, and for the rest of the passage a temporary steering apparatus was used. Fifty-one days out, the Flying Cloud passed the Falkland Islands and 41 days later arrived at New York after a passage of 92 days.

Next: Record Voyage of the Flying Cloud

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