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days - the same time as the record for the return journey via Cape Horn. The two ships
involved, the James Baines on the outward journey, and Lightning coming home, were clippers
of more than 2,000 tons, built in the eastern shipyards of America and owned by James Baines,
founder of the Black Ball Line in Liverpool. The first of their type was the Sea Witch, built in
1844 in New York. Clippers, which could attain speeds of 20 knots and cover 400 miles in 24
hours, were the giants of the sea in appearance and performance. In some cases their spread of
sail stretched to 10,000 yards of canvas, and a few could carry as many as 900 passengers.
Their heyday was, however, fairly brief, lasting for 30 years, between 1845 and 1875. By then,
coal-fired iron steamships were in the ascendancy. In 1855, one such ship, the Royal Charter,
set up a record for the run to Melbourne on her maiden voyage - 59 days.
The most famous of those early steamships with iron hulls, which also carried a big spread of
sail, was the Great Britain, iaunched in Bristol in 1843. Between 1852 and 1877, with a three-
year break when she was commandeered as a troop-carrier in the Crimean War and in the
Indian Mutiny, the Great Britain made 34 voyages to Australia, ten of which took 62 days. She
carried more emigrants to Australia than any other ship, over 20,000.
These steamships were strictly speaking auxiliary ships, their engines being auxiliary to sail - a
help and not the main driving force. Engine power was most useful when leaving or entering port
and in any doldrums. In strong westerlies, the engine's screw would be unused for days and
weeks at a time. It was not until the 20th century, and the development of steel hulls, steam
turbines and twin screws, that sail vanished from the masts of ships.
Steam was not the only factor that shortened the time ships took to sail around the world,
although many of the smaller, unwieldy vessels under 600 tons continued to take well over three
months to make the voyage. For many years, from 1788 until 1850, nearly every ship made for
Australia via the Canaries, or the Cape Verde Islands and Cape Town, and thence eastwards
along the 38th parallel. The distance to Sydney using this route was over 13,000 nautical miles.
Then 'Great Circle Sailing' was proposed. This arose from the premise that, as the Earth was
round, the shortest route between A and B would follow a curve, not a straight line. The theory,
first propounded by a Liverpudlian, John Towson, was put into general practice by 1852.
This new route, seeking out the most favourable winds, meant a non-stop voyage which took
the ships down across the Atlantic to South America, close to
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Rio de Janeiro, and then, after looping down under South Africa, with Cape Town 700 miles to
the north, curving up to the Bass Strait.
Many ships were wrecked. Despite the addition of the chronometer to the sextant, enabling the
captain to determine both longitude and latitude, landfalls could be accidental. Australia would
appear many hours, even days, before or. after a sighting was expected. There were no
timetables then, not even for ships' departures. Ships left not on the hour or minute, but on an
advertised day, if then.
The worst shipwreck and civilian disaster in Australian history was the destruction of the
Cataraqui in 1845. Packed with emigrants, she was on her way to Melbourne. A miscalculation
of her position after four days of cloud, rain and gales led her on a stormy night to strike the
rocky coast of King Island in the Bass Strait. Heavy seas broke over the ship and tore her
apart, sweeping passengers and crew overboard. All those below deck were drowned; others
were broken on the rocks. Nine men somehow reached the shore. But 399 people died.
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