5 ft. 7 in. out of the water; stow four months provisions under hatches; 27 tons of water in tanks, and 30 in casks. Our rate of sailing is as follows:– On a wind, under all sail, light breeze, eight and nine miles an hour; with top-gallant sails, more wind, nine and ten miles an hour; off the wind, under the above sail, from eleven to thirteen miles an hour. She sits like a duck on the water, never wets her main-deck, and is a most excellent sea-boat. To-day we started with the Sapphire 28, and distanced her completely.”
Respecting the Challenger and Wolf, Mr. R. Beecroft, late master of the Crocodile 28, has thus written to Captain Hayes:
“As you may not have heard from any other source of the following circumstance, which is so very favorable to the Challenger and Wolf, I take the liberty to communicate it to you. While those two vessels were on the East India station, they were ordered to Canton, and had to make the passage from Singapore, across the China Sea, during the height of the N.E. monsoon; consequently had to work up the whole way – the latter through the Palamon passage, and the Challenger direct. Both performed it with ease and expedition, though it is considered very difficult at such times, and impracticable to any but good ships. We tried the same passage in the Crocodile, at an earlier period, before the monsoon had reached its greatest strength, and when the sea was comparatively smooth; but the ship only reached up to the North Natanas, after three weeks trial, and we ultimately had to abandon it altogether, and bear up for Singapore.”
In 1827, Captain Sir Charles Malcolm, then just appointed Superintendent of the Bombay Marine, promised Captain Hayes he would order a ten-gun brig to be constructed on his principle. In 1830, he addressed him as follows:
“I did intend writing to you long ago, but have put it off from time to time, to have a report of a trial between the Euphrates and Tigris brigs – the former built from a plan of the navy board, and the latter on your plan. They are both superior vessels: the Tigris is by far the handsomest of the two; and Captain Sawyer says she is the best sea-boat of all the men-of-war, and the best sailer. She is the first vessel that has made the direct passage to the Gulph of Persia in the height of the S.W. monsoon; and I have no hesitation in saying, that upon the whole, the Tigris is by far the finest vessel of her class now in existence.”
With respect to the experimental cutters and ships built by Captain Hayes, we can but add, that they all have
