CHAPTER X
CALIFORNIA CLIPPERS OF 1851 AND THEIR COMMANDERS—A DAY ON BOARD THE "WITCH OF THE WAVE"
A LITTLE more than sixty thousand tons of shipping had been launched from the shipyards in and near New York during the year 1850, and over thirty thousand tons were still under construction there when the year closed, while the total tonnage of vessels built in the United States that year was 306,034 tons.
At this period the California clippers increased rapidly in size. Ships of a new type from 1500 to 2000 tons register, of which the Stag-Hound was the pioneer, were now being built, and ship-builders were called upon to deal with the problem of fitting wooden spars and hemp rigging that would stand the stress and strain of the enormous amount of canvas that these powerful vessels were expected to carry. The rigging and handling of this new type of long-limbed clipper, with her unexplored peculiarities, gave ship-builders and sea-captains some serious thinking and the ship lovers of South Street' something to talk about and argue over.
Thirty-one California clippers were launched during the year 1851, and almost all the large ship-
151
