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Updated: May 1, 2025
The Salamis, I may explain, was a full-rigged clipper ship of 1497 tons register, classed 100 A 1; being one of the crack vessels of the celebrated Gold Star Line, outward bound to Melbourne, as I have said, with a full complement of saloon and steerage passengers, and a general cargo that, while it filled her to the hatches, was so largely composed of light merchandise that it only sank her in the water to her very finest sailing trim; of which circumstance Captain Martin, her commander, was taking the fullest possible advantage, by "carrying on" day and night, in the hope of making a record passage.
The wind, however, was steady, and under her royals the Pirate was about the fastest and prettiest ship afloat. She heeled gently to the breeze and went through it to the tune of seven knots, rolling the heft of the long sea away from her clipper bows and tossing off the foam without a jar or tremble.
The result was the Ann McKim, of nearly five hundred tons, the first Yankee clipper ship, and distinguished as such by her long, easy water-lines, low free-board, and raking stem. She was built and finished without regard to cost, copper-sheathed, the decks gleaming with brasswork and mahogany fittings.
There was no lucky chance in this extraordinary voyage, for this clipper was the work of the greatest American builder, Donald McKay, who at the same time designed the Lightning for the same owners.
At all events, it's not upon your conscience, and that schooner is such a clipper, that I really think we should have lost her, if she had run for it; besides, as she is as strong as we are, we might have lost a good many men before we took her." "That's very true, Bob," replied I, "and satisfies me that I was right in what I did."
By the piper that played before Moses, it's a beauty she is she'd bate aisy the fastest tay clipper from Shanghai!" "Aye, that she would!" chorused the captain. "What do you think of the ship now, Miss Kate?" he added to that young lady, who was leaning against the bulwarks to leeward, looking out over the sea.
The clipper cut through the water like a dolphin, and, in a remarkably short space of time, Spinnet luffed up under the ship's stern, and explained all that had happened. The ship proved to be an East Indiaman, bound for Charleston, having, all told, thirty men on board, twenty of whom at once jumped into the clipper and offered their services in helping to take the pirate.
But you mustn't blame me if you find that the life is not exactly what you anticipate, and that you would prefer to find yourself on dry land once more." I willingly gave this promise, and a month later left Liverpool as an apprentice on the clipper ship Maid of Normandy. Appropriately enough the captain's name was Fairweather, and he certainly was a character in his way.
The man grabbed Cad's veil and raised it, disclosing her really lovely face, and at the same instant he uttered a yell of triumph, but the next moment he roared forth a yell of pain and rage, for Oscar had leaped to his feet, dealt the man a clipper square on the nose and over he went.
It took them six months to build her, and she was a curious-looking vessel when done, but, as the skipper said, "She may not be a clipper, but she'll sail anywhere, if you give her time enough."
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