and China, were the owners of the first clipper ship built in Great Britain. This vessel was the Stornaway, 506 tons, launched from the yard of Alexander Hall & Co., at Aberdeen, toward the close of 1850 for the China trade. It will be recalled that this firm had built the clipper schooner Torrington, for the same owners, four years before. The new ship was named for Stornoway Castle, Lewis, one of the Hebrides Isles, which was then owned by Sir James Matheson, and to which he retired after his long and successful career as ship-owner and merchant in the China trade.
It cannot be said that the Stornoway was a copy of any American model, as a comparison of dimensions will clearly show. Comparing her measurements with those of the American clipper barque Race Horse, of 512 tons register, built by Samuel Hall at East Boston in the same year, we find:
| Length | Breadth | Depth | |
| Stornoway | 157 ft. 8 in. | 25 ft. 8 in. | 17 ft. 8 in. |
| Race Horse | 125 ft. | 30 ft. | 16 ft. |
Thus the Stornoway, while she exceeded the Race Horse by 32 feet 8 inches in length and by 1 foot 8 inches in depth, yet had 4 feet 4 inches less breadth; and here began a contest, which extended over so many years, of breadth against length and depth. There can be no doubt that the Stornoway with more beam and the Race Horse with more length and depth, would have been faster, but at the same time considerably larger vessels.[1]
- ↑ The various systems of calculating the tonnage of vessels which were in force in Great Britain prior to 1854,
