272 : The Atlantic 



We must remember that McKay was only one of the clipper ship 

 builders. It is said that practically all of the North Atlantic packet 

 ships were built in New York over a period of thirty years and that 

 there were only 150 of them. To contrast with this it is said that 

 over 300 clipper ships were built in the yards of New England and 

 New York in a ten-year period. It is quite possible that this figure is 

 too high, for the clipper enjoyed enormous popularity and undoubt- 

 edly many vessels were called clippers that did not deserve this dis- 

 tinction. Even if allowances are made, this is a record of enormous 

 activity. There was never any question about Donald McKay's ships 

 deserving the title of clipper. He brought the whole movement to 

 its logical culmination and built the fastest sailing vessels of all time. 

 The first of these was the Stag Hound in 1850, The tonnage of the 

 Stag Hound was 1,534; more than twice the tonnage of Griffiths' Rain- 

 bow built only five years earUer. In several other ways she difFered both 

 from the Rainbow and from the ships that McKay himself later de- 

 signed. She had a sharp entrance and a concavity at the water lines but 

 she avoided the flair in the upper part of the bows which Griffiths 

 thought so necessary, and she also was built with considerable dead 

 rise rather than with the flat floors that Griffiths and Palmer had 

 both felt to be so important. She certainly illustrates the fact that 

 McKay, working alone in Boston, wanted to develop his own line of 

 attack and work out his own ideas, and it would be in keeping with 

 his character also that he did not want to encroach on the work of 

 his friendly rivals in New York. The lines of clipper development, 

 however, were each year becoming more clearly established and so 

 achieving an inevitable organic unity. 



This is clearly illustrated and expressed in the Flying Cloud, the 

 Sovereign of the Sea, Lightning and the Great Republic that came 

 along in rapid succession from McKay's yard. The way in which 

 McKay worked on his various ships illustrates both his integrity and 

 his independence. He now had a prosperous business and was con- 

 structing a number of vessels to order, and when he wished to de- 

 velop a particularly novel or striking vessel he did so on his own 

 initiative and at his own cost. The case of the Flying Cloud illus- 

 trates the success of McKay's ships as business ventures. This vessel 

 was ordered by Enoch Train and therefore was to be a distinctive 

 Boston venture. While she was building, however, news of her un- 

 usually attractive design spread to New York. She was inspected by 

 the Lows who made a handsome offer to Train and she was sold at 

 a profit before she was launched. In the meantime McKay's first clip- 



