The
clipper ship voyages around the Horn were fundamentally business
propositions, but the American tendency to turn practical concerns into
sporting ventures gave an almost boyish zest to the competition for
record passages. A three-thousand-dollar bonus awaited the skipper who
made the Cape Horn voyage in under a hundred days. Huge bets were
placed on favorite ships to arrive ahead of a designated time. Loud was
the lamentation when fog or a belt of calm interfered with a record run.
Clipper
ship captains were as aware of their responsibilities to the sporting
fraternity as were the Mississippi River captains who raced for records
with their safety-valves lashed down. Sail was cracked on from anchor
to anchor, as much as a vessel would carry without "pulling the sticks
out of her." On one occasion, with twenty thousand dollars in bets at
stake, Captain Philip Dumaresq of the Surprise reefed topsails
only twice between Sandy Hook and San Francisco, and took the vessel
into harbor by himself, through a thick blanket of fog. Time—ninety-six
days!
In the picture below (an oil painting attributed to J. E. Butterworth), the Comet is
seen in a hurricane off Bermuda, one of the hazards of the Cape Horn
route. This incident took place on October 2, 1852, and Currier
published a handsome lithograph of it. The print was in all probability
based on this painting.
