BLACKADDER AND HALLOWEEN

 

 

Everyone – if they know just one thing about Greenwich - will know about the Cutty Sark. They know about her speed and that she was built in 1869 in Scotland for John Willis.  What very few of them will ever discover is that within sight of Cutty Sark is the yard where her two sister ships were built, Halloween and Blackadder, built by Maudslay Son and Field at their Greenwich shipyard on Greenwich Peninsula.

 

The first of the two ships was Blackadder, described by Basil Lubbock writing on Clipper ships, as ‘Built i’ th’eclipse and rigged with curses dark’.  Most of what has been written about Blackadder seems to be full of a great deal of gloom and doom, but she survived for over thirty years and set many very fast times.

 

Blackadder was launched in February 1870 and named after a Scottish river.  She was built to the highest requirement of Lloyds for an iron sailing ship and had a ‘complete East India outfit for a full rigged ship’.  As she was fitted out it began to appear that there was a real problem with her construction, which affected the supports for the masts.  A further problem came when Blackadder nearly sunk in her dock in London because of a pipe which was not properly set in place.  Thus Blackadder was supposed to be ‘unlucky’ but this seems to be mainly on account of things which ‘nearly’ happened – she was usually lucky enough for them to be put right in time. 

 

Basil Lubbuck told the story of her first voyage.  Much of what he says appears to be based on the experiences of the second mate –who described ‘the first evil omen in Blackadder's life’.  It is said that this young man when he left his home in Limehouse to join the ship he left his purse behind and went back to get it.  Lubbock tells us ‘his mother, a sailor’s daughter and sailor’s wife greeted him at the door.... You should never have turned back.  That ship will never be lucky.' Thus Blackadder’s entire career apparently rested on a forgotten purse.  It sounds more like a story from the Middle Ages rather than the hard headed 1870s.

 

In Lubbock’s book Blackadder’s captain is described as 'senseless’ and ‘fool headed’.  Disaster came once the ship was in the ‘Roaring Forties’ and at ‘the first bit of a blow’.This ‘showed that the trouble aloft was very serious’ but the Captain decided on a ‘most foolish and risky manoeuvre’. Luckily the young second mate, who is very much the hero of Lubbock’s story, 'kept his eyes glued on Blackadder's maintop … and ... there was a flash of fire aloft’.  As the rigging fell .. the mast fell, bursting the main deck... tearing up the planking of the main deck.  At the same time, the mizzen mast began to sway ominously...  and fell ... and the ‘rudder began to lift in an ominous manner’.  By now the foremast too was ‘sagging forward’ and the sea was pouring through the holes in the deck and into the hold.  They were 1,000 miles from the Cape and 1,500 from Rio and with no chance of help.

 

Lubbock says that the captain was ‘so unnerved’ that he ‘disappeared below and was not seen again until late in the day’. The mate dealt with the situation and the carpenter’s team secured the hole in the deck.  By early afternoon the remaining sail had been removed and two ‘jury’ masts were up andin place.  Perhaps the Captain wasn’t unnerved so much but understood the competence of his officers and crew.

 

It was decided to head for the Cape – 1000 miles away.  In due course Blackadder encountered the ‘St Mungo’ of Glasgow who tried to approach her 'with the intention of speaking to her’ but Blackadder was so fast, even with her makeshift masts, that St. Mungo was unable to catch up with ‘the lame duck’.

 

Lubbock gives a wealth of technical detail about this incident and the problems with the ship and her sails – with dramatic detail of the work done to secure the ship in mid-ocean.  I have no way of evaluating any of what he says in regard to the construction of the ship or the arrangements with the sails. ‘China Clippers’ was published in 1914 when I am far from sure that many of his readers would have understood these arrangements either.  Sure, there were commercial sailing ships still around in 1914 along with many of the men who had worked on them – but were they the audience which Basil Lubbock was writing for?  It somehow seems that all these horrors are part of a sort of romantic blur about ‘the great days of sail’ while at the same time understating the professionalism of the crew. 

 

Once at the cape new masts and spars were fitted onto Blackadder and she was re-rigged and left to go to Shanghai. Then in the China Sea she was ‘run into by the French mail steamer .... but once again she survived her misfortune’. Following repairs at Shangai she sailed to Penang to load, where there was another collision.  She got back to London after 117 days out.

 

On Blackadder’s return to London the insurance men were waiting for her. The court case went on and on.  The underwriters would not pay the claim because of the issues over the securing and setting of the masts. Willis went on to sue Maudslay and the case went on for the next eighteen months. 

 

Lubbock says that ‘Blackadder’s ‘incompetent captain was at once discharged’. With a new captain ‘a very experienced man in the China trade’ she sailed from Deal to Shanghai achieving a record time of 95 days, returning from Foochow in 123 days.

 

Blackadder was to spend the next 20 years covering the oceans around the world at high speed.  1873 ...from New South Wales to Shanghai carrying coal ... from Iloilo in the Philippines to Boston with sugar ... 1875 Woosung to London in 120 days with tea ... to Sydney in 78 days ... 1876  Woosung to London in 125 days with tea ..... 1877 Woosung to London in 113 days with tea ....1880 Foochow to London in 130 days with tea. 1881 ... Shanghai to New York in 105 days with tea ....1886 New South Wales to London in 119 days with wool ..1888 from New South Wales to London in 90 days with wool.....1890 Brisbane to London in 91 days with wool. ....1893 Brisbane to London in 100 days with of wool ...1894 Brisbane to London in 123 days with wool. 

 

This was of course all very good publicity – but even someone as cynical as me can imagine the impact as one of these big sailing ships came up London River with news of yet another speed record broken.  How did she get up river to the docks? – it seems more likely that a tug would have brought her in but all that sail would have looked so good for the cameras. Its also worth pointing out how slow the gigantic cargo ships of today are compared with these super fast sailing ships. 

 

Lubbock of course was only too happy to describe all the accidents she had in these 20 years. ... a typhoon which threw her onto her beam-ends and her coal cargo shifted. ..... collison with a barque which bound for Melbourne...hitting an uncharted reef off Malaysia ...”a squall off the land took the-ship and backed her off the reef, and away she went as if steered by some demon” ..’luckily owing to the extra strength of her iron plates Blackadder sustained no injury'. Then to Foochow ‘with only one collision’ ....she lost her masts in a Pacific typhoon ... then she ‘nearly’ killed her master off the North Foreland.

 

Blackadder is described as a ‘man killer’ but even Lubbock doesn’t seem to have found much, if anything, about any fatalities. She stayed afloat, during some terrible disasters – all of which appear to have been dealt with efficiently by her crew – and she was very very fast.  Is there any way, I wonder, of comparing her accident record with those of other similar ships??  What she actually did was to break speed records. 

 

In 1899 Blackadder was sold to a Norwegian company and in November 1905 she was wrecked at Bahia when entering the port with a cargo of coal from Barry Docks.  This might seem to be the end of Blackadder .... and then I received an email from a scuba diver in Bahia.  He said:

 

“One of the sites we visit, especially if we have new divers, is a wreck known locally as the Black Drr, a Norwegian steam/sail ship.  Very recently, a local diver has discovered that the ship is actually the Blackadder.  She lies alongside the shore line at the bottom of a rocky. outcrop.  Two of the masts lie pointing out to sea and there is very little of her hull left.” 

 

Divers in Brazil are proud of Blackadder and have produced a plan of her wreck, together with photographs which can be found on a number of Brazilian web sites and there is a dedicated face book page and some videos.  I understand that tourists can take a boat trip to look down to the ocean floor and see her wreck.  If so, it’s good she still has a useful role – a very fast sailing ship, built in Greenwich.