Immediately on the emigrants’ arrival, the shipboard routine was introduced. Every passenger was to be up by 7 a.m., with breakfast between 8 and 9 a.m., but not before beds were rolled up and the bedding area swept out. Dinner would be at 1, supper at 6 and lights out would be at 10.
The dining arrangements too were regimented, but at least the food was plentiful, with the Board insisting that three good meals a day be provided, often of a higher quality than many were accustomed to at home. To ease the potential for friction, people were divided along national and religious lines, sitting with others of a similar ilk in groups of tables marked as ‘Scots Presbyterian’, ‘Irish Roman Catholic’ and so on. Roughly fourteen adults sat to a table, or ‘mess’, to which a ‘mess captain’ was appointed by vote on a regularly rotating basis. Bearing a chit to the kitchen, the ‘captain’ would carry a large earthenware bowl filled with roasted mutton or beef back to their respective mess. Tea, sugar, bread and butter, and salt—luxuries for some—were also provided.[9] It was explained that on board ship much of the cooking would need to be done by the passengers themselves, and skills and experience in the art of preparing food were established and noted.
After meals, floors, tables and surfaces would be cleaned and swept according to a strict roster. The superintendents of all the depots were anxious to prevent any hint of disease being traceable back to their institutions, so medical inspections were carried out with particular emphasis on the eradication of lice, fleas and other visible parasites. Clothing was washed and dried, but as depots themselves were thinly staffed, chores and maintenance—such as the continual whitewashing of walls and surfaces—were carried out by the passengers. It would be similar on board ship, when every person would be assigned sets of jobs and obligations, which they were expected to carry out to the best of their abilities.
Friendships and acquaintances were forged, and those unused to the close proximity of strangers quickly learned to abandon such qualms. All the while, the talk of the voyage consumed every conversation. What would the ship be like? Who was the captain and what was his experience? What of the standard of food on board, and would there be sufficient quantities to last the journey? What would life be like in that far-off colony of Victoria? These and other questions filled the depot with a constant murmur of anticipation. As for exactly how long their journey would last, their inquiries were met with only vague answers as this could not be determined. They were told to expect up to four months at sea, as provisions would be carried for 120 days, plying a route that would take them to not a single stop along the way. Once they stepped on board, they would not be disembarking until they reached Victoria.
In their hours of free time at the depot, some passengers could not resist boarding one of the regular shuttle ferries across the Mersey to catch a glimpse of the seemingly enormous metropolis of Liverpool, with all her inherent dangers and diseases. Others stood at the adjacent wharf where their ship was tied up, being busily prepared for sail by her small army of crew. Carpenters could be heard banging and sawing away in her interior, making final adjustments to the extensive refit she had recently undergone. While not permitted to come too close, many stood in awe, taking in the sight of this magnificent vessel, as sturdy and impregnable as a castle, and by far the largest object fashioned by the hand of man most of them had ever seen. Surely this leviathan would bear them in safety across the world’s oceans? On her stern, smartly painted in white lettering that stood out clearly against the black of her hull, was her curious name. They read it over to each other, then looked up once again at the words, ‘Ticonderoga—New York’.
6
The age of the clippers
On a freezing December morning in 1850, 15,000 people gathered expectantly around the edge of Boston harbour, eyes fixed on the enormous yard of renowned ship designer, now shipbuilder, Donald McKay. Men stamped their feet and women, as much as they dared, lifted their skirts out of the frozen mud and slush. In front of them, the masts of the great ship pointed like gigantic fingers towards a low and ominous sky. Her sleek black hull—for the moment secure in its cradle—seemed to resemble a powerful animal about to be unleashed from its tether.
In this seafaring age, interest in the launch of any new ship was always high, but with this, the first vessel both wholly designed and built by the enigmatic, Canadian-born McKay, the anticipation among the gathered Bostonians—as well as the wider maritime world—was intense. McKay’s vessels were a new breed of ship. In the past few years, he had designed the ‘extreme clippers’ Reindeer and Moses Wheeler, of 800 and 900 tons respectively; these ships contained nothing less than a revolution within their sleek, futuristic lines. Now, for the first time, McKay had both designed and built his own ship, and the public was desperate to see it.
Those near the front, craning for a better view, could just make out the hollow curve of her graceful bow, designed to scythe through rather than straddle the water, and the almost feminine lines of her hull, widening gradually towards mid-ship, offering a concave shape to the waterline, all designed along complex principles of minimum weight and maximum strength.
To add to the theatrical setting that chilly Boston morning, clouds of steam rose and swirled from the vats of boiling whale oil being applied to melt the frozen tallow that covered the slipway that ran down to the icy water’s edge. Suddenly, the excitement of the crowd rose as the sounds of mallets could be heard knocking away timber stays. ‘Your name is… Stag Hound!’ shouted a stentorian voice as a bottle of brandy was smashed against the ship’s side. Then, slowly at first, the Goliath began to move. A tremendous roar rose up all around. The sound of the great hull sliding, thundering and finally streaking down the slipway towards the water was drowned out only by the sudden eruption of every bell in the city pealing out in celebration of the birth of the mighty vessel. From somewhere, a cannon boomed then a band struck up and the cheering continued. The Stag Hound, perhaps the greatest extreme clipper ever to have set sail, was launched.
The reign of the American ‘Yankee clipper’ ships was brief but spectacular, ushering in a revolution in speed and travel that broke open the world, transfixing populations across continents, who could now reach each other in times unimaginable a generation earlier. They would dominate the grand climax of the Age of Sail up until the beginning of the American Civil War, after which British shipbuilders would adopt and perfect the design, using harder, drier woods that lasted much longer than the American ships.