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  Even the steamer Australian, a coastal mail carrier, was affected by a crew exodus: in Sydney she had to be assisted away from the dock and down the harbour by men from the English brig Fantome, while in Melbourne and Adelaide police were stationed at the bottom of the gangway to ensure her crew stayed on board. A few weeks later, when in Albany, she was delayed for a week, because the men whose job it was to load the coal needed to keep her boilers operating had been locked up in jail to stop them from fleeing to the goldfields.

  Forbes was at his wits’ end: should his crew jump ship he would be forced to stay in Melbourne for weeks, if not months. He had to move swiftly to counter any such eventuality – and he did. Either through bribing local police officers, or by concocting an enormous lie, he made sure that none of his crew could stray from the ship: he had them arrested, charged with insubordination and promptly locked up! His actions were reported in London in the 1 January 1853 edition of the Australian and New Zealand Gazette – a report that he probably embellished in a bid to justify his seemingly harsh measures:

  On arrival of the Marco Polo at Melbourne, such was the excitement on account of her rapid passage, that the people threw small nuggets of gold aboard among the crew. The crew having become unruly, Captain Forbes had the whole of them imprisoned until his departure, and was thus able to get off again without loss of time. Many ships are laid up in Melbourne, for want of hands, which cannot be obtained at any price. One ship had advertised for men at the rate of 30 shillings per month, but no application was made.

  Forbes’s carefully conceived plot to keep his crew had worked. Just three weeks after Marco Polo had arrived in Melbourne, the cargo had been loaded and the crew were back aboard, after he went to the police and paid their fines.

  His intention now was no different from when he had set sail from Liverpool on the outward-bound voyage: drive his ship as hard as possible. However, there was one additional challenge: this voyage involved rounding a sailor’s most feared graveyard, the craggy and inhospitable Hornos Island, and Cape Horn, its southernmost point.

  *

  In this era, seafaring and superstition went hand in hand. Belief in such things as a lucky day of the week had a considerable influence on many sailors’ lives.

  However, for Forbes, who by now had been at sea for half his life, it wasn’t until his time in Melbourne that he decided Sunday was his day. He was looking at the navigation plots logged during the just-completed voyage when he noted that Marco Polo had departed Liverpool on a Sunday, crossed the Equator on a Sunday, sighted the Cape of Good Hope on a Sunday and arrived in Melbourne on a Sunday.

  Consequently, he insisted that his ship weigh anchor and depart Melbourne, on a non-stop passage to Liverpool, on Sunday, 11 October 1852.

  Once clear of the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, and after the pilots had been put aboard their small boat so they could return to shore, Forbes set a course south-east, across the Tasman Sea to the Auckland Islands – off the southern tip of New Zealand’s south island, 1100 nautical miles away. At that point they would be at a latitude of more than 47 degrees south – well into the Roaring Forties and close to the Furious Fifties.

  In this region he was destined to find strong westerly winds: ideal conditions for propelling his ship as fast as possible towards South America. At times astonishing speeds were being achieved hour after hour. Marco Polo averaged more than 13 knots over one three-day period, and over the twenty-four hour period up to when she rounded the cape on 3 November, she averaged 15 knots. At times the 2500-ton vessel was careering down massive swells at nearly 20 knots.

  In a surprisingly short time Cape Horn was in Marco Polo’s wake, and she was headed north towards the Equator. Fortunately, the weather gods continued to look favourably on her progress, so the miles and the latitudes were being ticked off in impressive fashion until, much to the captain’s surprise and delight, they crossed the Equator . . . on a Sunday! From there, a quick calculation by Forbes on the distance to be sailed to Liverpool confirmed that he was well within range of delivering on his promise to return within six months of departure.

  There was an eerie and mysterious encounter for all aboard Marco Polo towards the end of her voyage. When she was some 600 nautical miles from Land’s End, the south-western point of England, the outline of a barque appeared on the horizon ahead, but it did not appear to be moving. As Marco Polo neared this vessel, Forbes and his crew realised it seemed abandoned: there was an empty longboat in the water attached to the ship by a painter, there was no sign of activity on the deck, and the rig was in a dishevelled state. Forbes called for blue lights (the signal flares of the era) to be ignited so they could be seen from the mystery vessel, and for rockets to be fired overhead, but there was no response, so Marco Polo resumed her course.

  As we have seen, Marco Polo had lived up to – indeed, exceeded – all expectations by the time she docked in Liverpool. She had completed the entire circumnavigation in a record-breaking time of just five months and twenty-one days: well inside the six-month limit that would allow Forbes to take a share in the company. Forbes went on to be recognised by many as the greatest ever captain on the lucrative Australian run during the gold-rush era. Inevitably, he also became the centrepiece of incredible maritime legends – stories in which it was difficult to separate fact from fantasy.

  He was, no doubt, a man who truly believed in himself – an attribute that was very evident when Marco Polo was departing Liverpool for her second voyage to Melbourne. While addressing the passengers on deck in his usual blustering voice, he is said to have bellowed: ‘Last trip I astonished the world. This trip I intend to astonish God almighty!’

  Forbes had placed wagers on sailing the fastest time of the season, and it is certain that many earthly souls were impressed when Marco Polo trounced all opposition – including the giant Antelope, one of the upstart new steamers.

  Having completed two exceptionally fast passages to the Antipodes and back, and only enhancing his reputation for being among the greatest captains of all time, Forbes stepped down as captain of Marco Polo at the completion of this second voyage. He was replaced by Charles McDonald, previously his second-in-command.

  Forbes spent some months relaxing onshore, but his mind was never far from the sea. Inevitably, James Baines lured him back to the Black Ball Line in 1854 with the offer of an exciting command: as captain of the magnificent new clipper ship Lightning on her maiden run to Melbourne. Her race against a ship of the rival White Star Line would become known as one of the most captivating contests of the clipper era.

  *

  Liverpool’s White Star Line, established in 1844, was James Baines’s arch-competitor. With Marco Polo having proved so successful on the gold-rush route to Melbourne, the White Star Line set about searching for a ship of a similar size and style, with a view to capturing a large share of the highly valuable human exodus to Australia.

  They found their solution only a matter of miles upstream along the Mersey, at the Bank Quay Foundry in Warrington, owned by Charles Tayleur. The three-masted clipper chosen as their pioneer on the Australian run was named Tayleur as a tribute to the owner of the yard.

  Tragically, though, Tayleur ran aground and sank on her maiden voyage on 21 January 1854, just two days out from Liverpool.

  It was a huge setback for the White Star Line: the company’s capacity to carry thousands of passengers to Melbourne and Sydney had been greatly reduced, and the disaster was the first black mark on the company’s perfect safety record.

  White Star Line’s owners, young and commercially savvy shipbrokers John Pilkington and Henry Threlfall Wilson, had no option but to defend their company and its reputation in the only way they knew: replace Tayleur with another ship as soon as possible and get back to business.

  Bringing added urgency to their situation was the knowledge that their arch-rival the Black Ball Line was about to introduce to the Australian passenger market one of the most spectacular clippers afloat: the
recently launched 244-foot Lightning, built by Canadian-born Donald McKay, the famed creator of Stag Hound and Flying Cloud.

  In the weeks after the sinking of Tayleur, fate dealt Pilkington and Wilson a most favourable hand. The magnificently proportioned 260-foot clipper Red Jacket had just sailed into the Mersey from America and was on the market. She had been designed by noted American naval architect Samuel Hartt Pook – who already had numerous proven clippers to his credit – and was considered by many mariners at the time to be the handsomest of the large clippers put afloat by American builders. She had been built by Deacon George Thomas, a professional shipbuilder who had also helped found the Second Baptist Church in Rockland, Maine. He had launched twenty-five large vessels prior to Red Jacket.

  Making this ship very appealing for potential purchasers was the fact that she had just made a record-breaking run across the Atlantic to England. Her time between New York and Liverpool had been thirteen days, one hour and twenty-five minutes: a mark for a commercial sailing vessel that still stands. In one twenty-four hour period during the voyage, Red Jacket had covered a noteworthy 417 nautical miles, and she logged 353 miles for each of the final six days.

  Her arrival in Liverpool on 23 January 1854 – just two days after the loss of Tayleur – could not have been more spectacular. Under the captaincy of the great American seafarer Asa Eldridge, Red Jacket sailed into the Mersey at such a pace that the tugs sent out to get lines aboard then tow her to the dock could not keep pace with her.

  Not surprisingly, concern spread rapidly among the thousands of onlookers lining both sides of the river: they expected Red Jacket either to run aground or to crash into a dock. But within minutes that concern had turned to awe. As if taking a bow before the admiring throng, Eldridge called on his sixty-man crew to hastily shorten sail. He then executed his pièce de résistance: a perfectly planned exercise in which he turned Red Jacket head-to-wind, back-winded the few sails that remained aloft, then steered her into her designated berth stern-first. An utterly astonished crowd roared in recognition of this amazing display of seamanship. They had never seen anything like it, and probably never would again.

  Red Jacket was an immediate sensation with dockside spectators. They were amazed by her size and sweet, sweeping lines, but her most impressive feature was the large, superbly crafted figurehead at her bow. It was a representation of a Native American chief wearing a feathered war headdress and a red jacket – Chief Red Jacket, or Sagoyewatha (He Who Keeps Them Awake), who had aided the British during the American Revolution, a commitment that earned him the red military jacket and subsequently the name.

  Some quick-fire negotiations with the representatives of the ship’s owners followed Red Jacket’s arrival, and in a very short time a contract was in place: the White Star Line would charter Red Jacket for a voyage to Australia and back, and have an option to purchase her after that.

  Much to the delight of Pilkington and Wilson, their company was back in the main arena of international sea travel. Their immediate challenge was to have Red Jacket ready to sail the 13,000 nautical miles to Melbourne as soon as practicable.

  They quickly saw their chance to make even more of a stir by staging a showdown with the Black Ball Line’s much-lauded Lightning. The ‘prize’ for the fastest time, while not material, was nonetheless extremely valuable. In a market where all that most travellers wanted was to get to Australia as quickly as possible, bragging rights were the most powerful leverage a shipping company could hold.

  Regardless of Red Jacket’s performance on her maiden voyage from New York, Lightning was certainly the crowd favourite for the face-off. For a start, she had the perfect pedigree, as a Donald McKay designed and built ship. But adding further firepower to that qualification was the confirmation that the Black Ball Line had lured the now-legendary Bully Forbes into the role of captain for Lightning’s circumnavigation.

  Lightning was just 16 feet shorter in overall length than Red Jacket, and of the same beam: 44 feet. Her forward sections were typical of McKay ships, the stem being heavily raked, while the form of the hull made a well-proportioned transition from very concave to convex in shape. Like Red Jacket, she had an impressive figurehead, described in the Boston Daily Atlas as ‘a beautiful full-length figure of a young woman holding a golden thunderbolt in her outstretched hand, the flowing white drapery of her graceful form and her streaming hair completing the fair and noble outline of the bow’. Her rig and sail plan were enormous: the mainmast stood 164 feet above the deck, while the main yard on that mast was more than twice the ship’s beam – 95 feet. Supporting the three masts were huge 11½-inch-circumference stays made from Russian hemp. Her total sail area measured nearly two acres.

  Lightning had set out from Boston for Liverpool on 18 February, about a month after Red Jacket. It was a departure that caused Duncan McLean of the Boston Daily Atlas to write a glowing report:

  We have seen many vessels pass through the water, but never saw one which disturbed it less. Not a ripple curled before her cutwater, nor did the water break at a single place along her sides. She left a wake as straight as an arrow and this was the only mark of her progress . . . The voyage so auspiciously begun proved one of the most remarkable ever made by a ship on the ocean; she had left more miles of salt water astern in twenty-four hours than any vessel that has ever sailed the seas propelled by winds and canvas.

  Lightning made the crossing to Liverpool in thirteen days, nineteen and a half hours: eighteen hours slower than Red Jacket’s record. But the closeness of that 3000-nautical-mile dash, and the fact that they had sailed from different ports, provided grounds for considerable debate as to which ship was the rightful trans-Atlantic record-holder. The distance from Boston was approximately 175 nautical miles shorter than from Red Jacket’s departure port, New York. Lightning supporters fuelled the controversy by arguing that Lightning had been confronted by adverse easterly winds for a considerable part of her voyage. Bully Forbes himself weighed in, disputing the veracity of his rival’s astonishing sailing time in a letter to the editor of Liverpool’s Northern Daily Times.

  What could not be argued against was Lightning’s incredible record twenty-four hour run of 436 nautical miles on 1 March: an average speed of 18.16 knots, and 19 nautical miles more than Red Jacket’s best. This historic mark is even more impressive when it is realised that a quarter-century would pass before Arizona became the first steamship to match that average speed over a day.

  *

  The upside to the great debate that developed around the trans-Atlantic achievements of both ships was that it fostered even greater interest in the ‘race’ to Melbourne, which would begin within a matter of weeks. From the time when the two ships were in port, the Liverpool waterfront was alive with speculation as to which one would record the fastest time, and accordingly many a wager was laid, apparently even by the two captains.

  Forbes was certainly doing his best to stir up would-be punters by announcing that he hoped to reach Melbourne in just sixty days: a new record. He also continued to use the media to question Red Jacket’s true potential, then contemptuously announced that the owners of the White Star Line would not back their ship in a bet of 100 to 500 guineas in which the winner would donate the money to charity.

  Interestingly, even the announcement that Red Jacket had a new captain made no difference to the odds being offered. Asa Eldridge had been replaced by a highly regarded and capable Liverpudlian, forty year old Samuel Reid. His credentials as a master were strong – twenty-five years on the high seas – and while he had never commanded a ship on the route to Australia, Pilkington and Wilson had no hesitation in assigning him to the task. As a token of his commitment, Reid purchased a small shareholding in the ship.

  While the Lightning and Red Jacket face-off held centre stage, their voyages represented only a small part of the business of getting passengers and cargo to Australia. The Black Ball Line was advertising Lightning as one of sixteen passenger ships in its
fleet, seven of which were new. The White Star Line, while offering fewer ships, had eight new vessels in its fleet.

  *

  On 4 May 1854, after prayers had been delivered on deck, Red Jacket’s dock lines were cast off so she could be eased away ever so slowly from her berth, under tow by steam tugs. On board were sixteen first-class passengers, 438 adults in second class, an unknown number of children and ninety-eight crew. There were tears and cheers as flags were waved, bands played and canon fire boomed across the Mersey.

  While enjoying these celebrations, those on the dock and lining the river were left to wonder: would those departing be safe? Would they reach Australia? What of their future? There was no certainty associated with this or any other voyage, not to mention the challenging, life-changing experience that awaited them in the Antipodes.

  *

  Ten days later, on a Sunday – Bully Forbes’s good-luck day of the week – these scenes were repeated as Lightning was towed out to sea for her non-stop passage to Melbourne. She was carrying 452 passengers, including forty-five children, plus a complement of more than ninety crew members. As was the case on the majority of voyages to Australia in the mid–1850s, the average age of the passengers was in the low twenties.

  One cause of her delayed departure had been the need for last-minute renovations. As impressive as she was, Lightning had arrived in Liverpool not ready for a circumnavigation. Some of her accommodation was still to be completed, but the biggest task to be undertaken was the sheathing of her hull with thin sheets of Muntz metal. This material, comprising 60 per cent copper, 40 per cent zinc and a minute trace of iron, had been developed and patented by a British metal-roller, George Fredrick Muntz, in Birmingham in 1832. It had two important advantages over the more common copper sheathing: it had considerably greater anti-fouling capabilities and cost about one-third less.