The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
THE COLONIAL CLIPPERS
Kent.Lightning.White Star.Malabar.
EMIGRANT FLEET IN HOBSON’S BAY.
From a painting by Captain D. O. Robertson, late commander of ship “Lightning.”
Frontispiece.
Larger image (175 kB)
THE
COLONIAL CLIPPERS
BY
BASIL LUBBOCK
Author of “The China Clippers”; “Round the Horn Before the Mast”;
“Jack Derringer, a tale of Deep Water”; and “Deep Sea Warriors”
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND PLANS
SECOND EDITION
GLASGOW
JAMES BROWN & SON (glasgow) Ltd., Publishers
52 to 58 Darnley Street
1921
Dedication
Dedicated to all those who learnt the art of the sea so thoroughlyand practised it so skilfully aboard the Colonial Clippers.
PREFACE
In this book I have attempted to give some account of the beautifulsailing ships which played so great a part in the development of thegreat British Dominions under the Southern Cross.
It is written specially for the officers and seamen of our MercantileMarine, and I have endeavoured to avoid such a criticism as thefollowing:—“Heaps about other ships, but my old barkey was one of thefastest and best known of them all and he dismisses her with a line ortwo.”
I have made rather a point of giving passage records, as they are aneverlasting theme of interest when seamen get together and yarn aboutold ships. The memory is notoriously unreliable where sailing recordsare concerned, so I have been most careful to check these from logbooksand Captains’ reports. Even Lloyd’s I have found to be out by a day ortwo on occasions.
A great deal of my material has been gathered bit by bit through thepast 25 or 30 years. Alas! many of the old timers, who so kindly lentme abstract logs and wrote me interesting letters, have now passed away.
The illustrations, I hope, will be appreciated, for these,viii whetherthey are old lithographs or more modern photographs, are more and moredifficult to unearth, and a time will soon come when they will beunprocurable.
Indeed, if there is any value in this book it is because it records andillustrates a period in our sea history, the memory of which is alreadyfast fading into the misty realms of the past. To preserve this memory,before it becomes impossible, is one of the main objects, if not themain object, of my work.
Note.—As in my ...