The New Clipper Ship Winged Racer, of Boston.

This noble ship registers about 1700 tons, and notwithstanding her vast size, there is sich easy elegance in her outline, and such beautiful compactness in her model, that she does not appear larger than many freighting ships of half her register. On the keel she is 198 feet long, on deck, between perpendiculars, 210, and over all, 226; her extreme breadth of beam is 42½ feet, rounding of sides 6 inches, and depth of hold 23 feet, including 7 feet 10 inches height of between decks. Her dead rise, at half floor, is 2 feet, and sheer, between the curve of the bow and the rise of the quarter, 3 feet.

The bow is long and very sharp, with slightly convex lines, and its angular form is preserved to the rail, where it blends in perfectly harmony with her general outline. For a head she has the representation of a flying horse with extended wings, tastefully gilded; otherwise, she is smack-smooth forward, without either head or trail boards. Every line and moulding, even to the seams of her planking, are true to a hair in their sweep and swell. Broadside on, her bold and buoyant sheer, and the excellence of her workmanship, render her an object of unqualified admiration. Her stern is light and graceful, and is tastefully ornamented with gilded carved work. It is semi-elliptical in form on the line of the monkey rail, but below has curved quarter pieces, which give it the form of a semi-circular arch; and her run, like her bow, is long and clean. Notwithstanding the extreme sharpness of her ends, she has a long and buoyant floor, and will carry her cargo nobly. She is sheathed with yellow metal up to 20 feet forward, and to 21 feet aft, and above it is painted black.

Her bulwarks are 4 feet high from the deck, surmounted by a monkey-rail of 15 inches, set off with mahogany stanchions. She has a topgallant forecastle, and, abaft the foremast, a house 45 feet long by 18 wide, and 6½ high, which contains quarters for the crew, the galley, and other apartments, and over every hatchway she has a moveable house. She has a halfpoop deck, with a substantial house built into its end, with gangways on each side, and large standing room aft, where she is steered.

She has a spacious cabin, splendidly wainscotted with mahogany and other fancy woods, and finished and furnished in the first style of nautical beauty. It has two entrances, one forward and the other aft, and contains 12 state-rooms, a wash-room, and other apartments, and forward has a small ante room, with the mate's state-room on its larboard side, and the pantry opposite. Her accommodations for passengers are all that could be desired, for health, comfort or safety.

The bulwarks, houses, &c., are painted buff volor, relieved with white, and the waterways blue; and her deck room, notwithstanding the houses, is spacious, and admirably designed for working ship. We will now take a brief revied of her materials, and the style of her construction.

Her keel is of rock maple, in two depths, sided 16 inches and moulded 3 feet, her floor timbers on the keel are moulded 18 inches and sided 12, the first midship keelson is of oak, 18 inches square, and the second and third are of yellow pine, 15 inches square. The floor timbers are bolted alternately through the lower keelson and the keel with 1¼ inch copper, driven through and rivetted, and the other keelsons are bolted through the navel timbers down into the keel, with refined iron of the same size as the copper. She has also sister keelsons 15 inches square, which are bolted through each other and the lower midship keelson, and diagonally through the timbers into the keel. The floor ceiling is 4½ inches thick, and over the floor heads she has a bilge keelson 16 inches square, extending her whole length, which is scarphed, and square bolted with 1¼ iron. Outside of the bilge keelson there are five strakes of 12 by 14 inches, and the rest of the ceiling up on the deck is 8 inches in thickness, all square bolted and scarphed. The lower deck baams are 16 inches square, and those under the upper deck are 16 by 10, all hard pine. All the knees in the hold are of oak, and those in the between decks of hacmatack. The hanging knees under the lower deck beams are sided 12 inches, and moulded 23 inches in the throats, and have from 20 to 24 bolts in each, and their lower ends rest upon a stringer of 12 by 14 inches, which is scarphed and square fastened. The lodging knees are sided 9 inches, and are scarphed together in every berth and closely bolted. Her stanchions are 10 by 12 inches kneed above and below, in the wake of the hatchways, and elsewhere they are clasped with iron and bolted through-and-through.

The between decks waterways are 16 inches square, with a thick strake inside, and another over them of 10 by 16 inches, and these are all cross bolted, first through each other and the beams, and then through the timbers. The ceiling above, up on the deck, is 6 inches thick, square fastened, and the hanging and lodging knees are nearly of the same dimensions as those below, and are bolted in the same style. The stanchions are of oak, turned, with iron rods through their centres, which set up with screws in the hold, thus binding both decks together.

Her upper deck waterways are 14 inches square, with thick strakes inside of them, let into the beams, and the upper deck planking is of beautiful, clear white pine, 3½ inches thick, the lower deck is of Norway pine, of the same substance.

Her ends are very strongly secured. The stem and sternpost are each of one piece, with natural knees at the bottom, and the apron, false post, and the knees connected with them, are very stout; and, forward and aft, she is bolted up to 22 feet with copper. She has 8 hooks forward and 7 aft, and three of these in each end of the hold, fay to the knees under the beams; those in the between decks completely span the angles of the ends, and are very closely bolted through all.

Her garboards 8 inches thick, the next strake 7, the third 6, the fourth 5, graduated to 4½ inches thickness, the substance of her planking on the bottom. The wales are 6 by 7 inches, and she is square fastened with treenails, and butt and bilge bolted with copper, and finished smooth as glass. Her covering board is 6½ inches thick, and the main rail nearly the same size, and her bulwarks are beaded, tongued and grooved. Her frame is of the best of white oak, her deck frames and scantling of hard pine, and she is copper fastened and seasoned with salt. She has Emerson's patent ventilators, brass ventilators along her planksheer and in her bitts, and every other means of ventilation now in general use. In materials and workmanship, she is second to no ship of her size that we have inspected.

She has a powerful patent windlass, 2 capstans, purchase winches along her sides, a patent steering apparatus, four boats, heavy ground tackle, and Crane's self-acting chain stoppers. She has also a circular iron tank, abaft the mainmast, her whole depth, capable of holding 6000 gallons of water.

She is a full rigged ship, and looms grandly aloft. Her fore and main masts are built and hooped with iron, the mizzen mast is of a single spar. The following are the dimensions of her masts and yards:

MASTS.
Dimensions,
Inches.
Length,
Feet.
Mast-heads,
Feet.
Fore 34 81 14½
Top 17½ 47
Topgallant 12¾ 26½ 0
Royal 10 16½ 0
Skysail 8 11 0
Main 36 87 15
Top 18 50 9
Topgallant 13 28 0
Royal 11 18 0
Skysail 9 12 0
Mizen 26 76 12½
Top 14 41
Topgallant 10 22 0
Royal 8 14 0
Skysail 7 0
YARDS.
Fore 18½ 71 yard-arms...4½
Top 15½ 57
Topgallant 11 43½
Royal 34
Skysail 6 25
Main 20½ 81 5
Top 16½ 63 5
Topgallant 12 48
Royal 38½
Skysail 7 25
Crossjack 16¼ 61
Mizzentopsail 12½ 48
Topgallant 38 2
Royal 25
Skysail 18 1

Her bowsprit is 30 inches in diameter, and 25 feet outboard; jibboom 17½ inches in diameter, divided at 20 and 15 feet for the inner and outer jibs, with 7 feet end, and the other spars in proportion. Her standing rigging is of four stranded patent rope, and she has the usual chain and iron work aloft, now in general use. She has as noble a set of spars as the eye could wish to survey, beautifully proportioned and strongly secured.

The mast-heads are crowned with gilded balls; the lower masts are white, the yards black, and her studdingsail booms bright, with black ends.

Viewed as a whole, she is certainly a magnificent vessel, and one, too, that will sail very fast, work easily and lie to like a duck. She was built at East Boston by Mr R.E. Jackson, and it is but doing him simple justice to state that every practical mechanic and draughtsman who have inspected her, speak unanimously in her praise.

She was built for Messrs. Secomb & Taylor, who sold her to Messrs. Sampson & Tappan, who now own the pargest clipper fleet of any firm in the United States. They own the Staghound, the Westward Ho, the Flying Fish, the Nightingale, and last and largest the Winged Racer. These magnificent vessels are worth half a million of dollars.

The Winged Racer sails this day for New York, where she will load in Sutton's line of San Francisco clippers.


The Boston Daily Atlas, November 12, 1852.

Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius.


Sjöhistoriska Samfundet | The Maritime History Virtual Archives | The Boston Daily Atlas. Search.

Copyright © 1997 Lars Bruzelius.