Forbes was rightly lauded for his circumnavigation and he was a made man on his return to Liverpool. The most famous captain in Britain, Forbes found that celebrity suited him. He was a born extrovert, very fond of grandiose gestures, and made more than a few wine-infused promises of even greater passages at the many dinners held in his honour. His departure from Liverpool on his second voyage was done in suitably swashbuckling style. Addressing his passengers as they towed out of the Mersey, Forbes proclaimed: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, on our last voyage, I astonished the world with the sailing of this ship. This time, I intend to astonish even God almighty!’ As Liverpool receded, Forbes knew he had a lot to live up to, but he made it to Melbourne in the good time of 75 days and was back again in Liverpool in under six months.
Commander of the Lightning
On his return, Forbes was appointed skipper of Baines’ new ship, the Lightning. This vessel was 254 ft long, far bigger than the Marco Polo. She was built by Donald McKay of Boston, who was already famous for the legendary Flying Cloud, which had broken the record from New York to San Francisco in 1852. The Lightning was, if anything, a more extreme vessel and her waterlines were incredibly sharp and hollow. Above the waterline she was actually very clumsy to look at from some angles. Forbes didn’t care too much for looks; all he cared about was the fact that her greater waterline length gave her greater potential for speed.
Hobsons Bay was the entrance to the city of Melbourne from the sea and emigrants would have lined the rail to get their first sight of their new home.
The storm-ravaged coastline of the Kerguelen Islands.
The Red Jacket cautiously feeling her way through a huge ice field down in the depths of the Southern Ocean. This was during her race home from Australia with Lightning and she very nearly became completely trapped in the ice. Despite escaping, she lost precious time.
Three clippers lie in Hobsons Bay, Melbourne. To the left is the Kent, in the centre is the Lightning and to the right is the Shalimar. All the ships are drying and airing their sails.
He was sent over to Boston to collect the new vessel and immediately put her to the test. On the tenth day out, she made 436 nautical miles in 24 hours. It was a phenomenal run. On this day, Forbes noted the following in his log book: ‘Carried away fore topsail and lost jib. Hove up the log several times and found the ship going through the water at a rate of 18 to 18 and a half knots. Lee rail underwater and rigging slack.’ The Lightning arrived in Liverpool in the remarkable time of 13 days, a record at the time and one that won Forbes yet more plaudits.
The clipper loaded for Melbourne and was pitted against the Red Jacket, which had also been built in Boston and was being chartered by the White Star Line, a rival Liverpool shipping company. The Red Jacket was of similar dimensions to the Lightning and had also raced across from the US in 13 days. Many bets were placed on the outcome of this race.
The Red Jacket got away first and made it out to Melbourne in 67 days, one day quicker than the Marco Polo’s best time. Bully Forbes was considerably less fortunate with his winds. A big vessel like the Lightning needed a gale to really get her going, but the weather stayed predominantly fair for the passage and the Lightning arrived in Melbourne after a voyage of 77 days. This was still quick, but not quick enough to back up all the big claims that Forbes had made prior to departure in Liverpool.
The passage also featured a terrifying incident off the Kerguelen Islands, deep in the wilderness of the Southern Ocean. The Kerguelens are a desolate group of islands, uninhabited, surrounded by savage rocks and pounded relentlessly by the lonely sea. They acted as a useful signpost for skippers navigating this great empty stretch of water and Forbes no doubt aimed slightly to leeward of them as a means of getting a firm ‘fix’ of his position.
As night fell on 16 July, he knew he was in the vicinity and the lookout was urged to be extra vigilant on watch. No attempt was made to slow the Lightning down. Shortly after 10 pm came the cry of ‘land ahead’; the vessel was headed straight for this treacherous group of islands. The helm was put down, but shortly there was another cry of ‘land ahead’. The clipper had raced right into the labyrinth of islands and, within minutes, the cry of ‘breakers on the lee bow’ rang out. They were surrounded.
Many of the sailors perceived that the game was up and set about distributing life jackets. Passengers tumbled out of bed to eye the snow-covered Kerguelens, lashed as they were by brutal breakers. All awaited the final sickening crunch and inevitable freezing death. It never came. By some miracle, Forbes managed to con his ship through the islands on that bleak, dark night. The following day, he boasted to his passengers that it was all intentional, but there were many who shook their heads at his recklessness.
Forbes had ‘got away with it’, but the slow passage out meant he had it all to do on the return leg. Again, her rival, the Red Jacket, got away first and was running well until near Cape Horn when she sailed into a huge field of ice.
At one point it looked as if she was hopelessly embayed, but after many hours of frantically scanning the horizon, the skipper managed to force a way out and, despite the damage, made an excellent passage of 73 days. James Baines must have wondered what his celebrity skipper could do to counter this. Badly beaten on the passage out, he had to make up time on the return. He did just that, reaching Liverpool in the record time of 63 days.
This is a run that was rarely approached again and never bettered by a commercial sailing ship. Forbes was truly on top of his game and the phenomenal run home meant that he had beaten the Red Jacket on elapsed time, despite her two very fine runs. James Baines was delighted. Forbes was made commodore of the fleet and given command of an even larger clipper, the Schomberg, which had just been built by a British shipbuilder, Alexander Hall of Aberdeen. She was the biggest sailing ship ever built in the UK and great hopes were entertained that she would put the American shipbuilders back in their place.
Forbes’ new command Lightning was a huge clipper capable of being driven hard in stormy conditions as this painting illustrates.
The Schomberg departing Liverpool at the start of her ill-fated voyage. At the time of her launch, she was the largest sailing ship ever built in the UK.
Passengers saying their final goodbyes before departure.
Steerage passengers often had to make their own entertainment aboard.
A satirical cartoon that came out in the wake of the Schomberg incident illustrates how notorious Forbes’ reckless behaviour had become.
The Schomberg’s only voyage
The Schomberg left Liverpool after another endless succession of high falutin’ claims from her skipper. From her mainmast flew a banner proclaiming ‘Melbourne in 60 days’. All were used to Forbes’ ambitious claims by now, but there were plenty whom he had upset along the way and who would have relished seeing him fall.
Baines was aware that many of his passengers were less than enamoured with Forbes’ rough and ready ways. They didn’t sit well with Victorian niceties of etiquette. As the skipper of some of the most prestigious passenger ships of the time, Forbes was unwittingly drawn into a world of forced manners and charm that his simple, tough upbringing hadn’t prepared him for. Yet, with every passage a success, Baines was happy to indulge his star skipper. If the money kept rolling in and the records continued to fall, what was there to worry about? Forbes’ lack of manners could easily be brushed off as bluff seaman’s talk, with angry words forgotten in the afterglow of yet another successful passage.
The voyage of the Schomberg was different. For all of Forbes’ promises of Melbourne in 60 days, she took roughly that to get to the Cape of Good Hope and she made the Australian coast in 81 days. It wasn’t a dreadful passage, but it was not 60 days. Nevertheless, whatever boasts a skipper has made, a bad passage can be forgiven and the vessel was apparently very heavily laden with machinery and out of trim from the start. There is little doubt that she was unlucky with her winds and 81 days was actually a respectable passage.
<
br /> Forbes’ mistake was that he didn’t seem to be able to hide his disgust at the slowness of the trip from his passengers. His relationship with some of the more vocal of these declined as the voyage progressed. It didn’t help that he overhauled an American ship at such close quarters that the Schomberg’s stunsail boom whipped the flags off her stern. This was a very disrespectful, not to mention dangerous, piece of sailing.
Icebergs at sea were feared by all, and Forbes’ cavalier approach to them was not appreciated.
Cape Otway was a clear signpost on the way to Melbourne. Forbes missed it as the cape was obscured behind the closer Moonlight Head.
The Schomberg freshly launched and being fitted out in Aberdeen.
Passengers were also terrified by the reckless manner in which Forbes ran the Schomberg in towards an iceberg for them to have a closer inspection. ‘So close, she must have touched,’ one passenger reflected. The old daredevil spirit could not be shaken off. By the 81st day of the voyage the relationship between skipper and passengers had largely broken down. The real clincher was that Forbes and Hardy, the doctor aboard the Schomberg, had become rather too friendly with two lady passengers, frequently entertaining them in the officers’ cabins. As the ship approached Australia, there were dark mutterings among the passengers, who saw Forbes as crass, uncouth and worse.
Dangerous gamble
On the evening of 25 December the Schomberg was jogging along the Australian coast to Melbourne. Forbes retired below to play cards with one of his young female friends and proceeded to lose. On deck, the watchful mate was under orders to call the skipper if the ship needed to be put about. About 10.30 pm, he judged that the ship was closing the land and went below to inform the captain. Unfortunately Forbes was in a temper and insisted on playing one final hand.
Stepping up on deck 20 minutes later, into the heat of the Australian night, Forbes’ anger at losing was sharpened by the tension on deck. The wind was light and a tack was required, but Forbes waited. He was annoyed that it appeared he was being dictated to by his officers, so he let the ship ghost on towards land. Another 20 minutes later, with the surf audibly booming on shore, he finally ordered the Schomberg to be put about. Forbes had cut it dangerously fine; the old dare that had scared the Lightning’s passengers off the Kerguelen Islands still held firm. He would again impress his authority upon passengers and crew through his extraordinary pluck.
A quick tack was absolutely vital, however, since there was also a strong current setting the ship onshore – a factor that Forbes hadn’t reckoned on. Up went the helm, but the heavy, out-of-trim vessel baulked in the light winds. Ghosting up into the wind she stalled horribly and fell away again. Nothing for it but to get her moving and try something else. In the light wind she clearly wouldn’t tack, so Forbes opted to wear ship. This meant that instead of putting the bow through the eye of the wind, the ship ran around in a big circle and switched tacks with the wind on the stern. Sea room was needed for this and a frantic look at the chart suggested there might just be enough. Just.
The crew prepared for this manoeuvre and, as the ship wallowed listlessly, there was the dreaded cry of ‘breakers ahead’ from the lookout. Up ahead the white surf gleamed in the moonlight. The trap was closing in. Land and destruction were beckoning. It was a nightmare. It looked like Forbes, king of storms, was going to lose his ship in about five knots of wind. Down went the helm this time and the Schomberg answered it with painful slowness. Minutes passed agonisingly – everything was happening in slow motion. Even now, Forbes must have thought his lucky charm would hold and the next day this would just be another adventure to relate. It seemed as if he was right. The Schomberg was clearly going to get past the breakers and away to safe waters.
Forbes suddenly noticed that by now the passengers lined the moonlit deck, a hushed murmur filling the night air. All eyes were on the captain. In the sticky heat of the tense night, the crew strained at the braces, while a cold sweat prickled Forbes’ brow. Then, subtly, almost imperceptibly, the Schomberg shuddered. Seconds later, there was a resounding thud as she was picked up by the malevolent swell and thrown bodily onto a sand bar that skirted the reef. She was hard aground.
Forbes stood clutching the rail, numb with shock, paralysed with horror. Yet his fiery character could only react angrily to the situation. The game was up, he realised that, and rage swelled up in his heart. The mate approached him tentatively: ‘She’s hard aground, sir, what next?’ ‘Let her go to hell, and let me know when she’s on the beach,’ he shot back furiously in full earshot of the passengers and stormed below.
The subsequent evacuation of the ship seems to have been supervised by the mate without the skipper. It was fortunate that they had grounded on such a calm night and in such a hospitable spot. The evacuation of the vessel was therefore soon achieved without a hitch. Forbes’ lack of cooperation was not actually unusual and there were many instances where skippers seemed paralysed after a stranding, but his petulant outburst was noted by many. He had always been good for a sound bite – now it proved his undoing.
Not all wrecks were dramatic affairs involving loss of life. Like the Schomberg, the wool clipper Cromdale, pictured here, came to a very prosaic end. In this case, the clipper rammed the cliffs off the Cornish coast after her captain lost his bearings in fog.
Forbes’ next command after the Lightning was the Hastings, a tubby brig not dissimilar to this one.
The Schomberg was abandoned only 35 miles from her destination. While she was pounded to bits in the surf, the passengers gathered for their gleeful protest. Many hoped that the official inquiry would see Forbes stripped of his ticket. Ultimately, though, Forbes held the trump card he had so conspicuously lacked the night of the accident: The sand bar the Schomberg had grounded on was uncharted and he was promptly cleared of any blame. In many ways, Forbes had got away with it again.
Decline and fall
Yet, following the wreck, Forbes fell into a decline almost as rapid as his meteoric rise. James Baines was not only his boss but also his friend and was still willing to help his wayward skipper. God knows what he made of the lurid stories coming out of Australia, but he had enough faith in Forbes to give him command of the rather down-at-heel Hastings. She was a far cry from the Lightning, but she was still a command.
However, Forbes’ lucky charm had abandoned him and catastrophe now dogged him at every turn. In 1857, he was arrested in Brisbane after being accused by a passenger of assault with intent to rape. The charges were later dropped. Next, the Hastings, badly strained and patently unseaworthy, was shifted into the guano trade, the lowest of all operations for a sailing ship. Forbes abandoned her off the South African coast in 1859 with seven feet of water in the hold. He had fallen a long way since the wreck of the Schomberg and was described latterly as ‘a seedy broken down sort of a man, with the forced jocularity of a broken hearted man’. Several more miserable years and long, demoralising spells languishing ‘on the beach’ in Calcutta and Forbes was almost finished. Every port he went to, he faced the same pitying looks and heard the same murmured stories of his glory days; a repeated blow upon a bruise that was never allowed to heal.
Lightning driven before the storm. She was a ship that revelled in running before the heavy winds of the Southern Ocean. Her high sides ensured that passengers remained dry.
The Lightning picking up a pilot at the end of her second voyage in 1854. She was now commanded by the popular Captain Enright, who was a teetotaller and did not gamble.
His last passage in 1867 was a poignant one, for he was reunited with the Marco Polo. She, too, was a shadow of her former self, stripped of her status as a passenger vessel, her hull sodden and strained by years of hard use. The pair made one final trip across to Mobile, Alabama, to load cotton. Forbes must have been haunted by former glories as he trod the decks of the tatty old vessel. After this, he retired to Liverpool, where he died a pauper in 1874. He did outlive his epoch-making Lightning, which burned to the
waterline in 1869 and was scuttled in Geelong, Australia.
Yet the battered old Marco Polo sailed on, outliving Forbes by many years. Every year she fell further from grace. Eventually she was reduced to life as a timber carrier and washed around the Atlantic, dishevelled and rotten. Holed up in backwaters, sailors would spot the old timer and, eyeing her with sadness, would speak of her glory days, long gone. She eventually found her resting place not far from her home port of St John in New Brunswick, driven up Cavendish Beach on Prince Edward Island. Here, the fastest ship in the world broke up in the surf, her hull forever twisted out of shape by the pounding waves.
Lightning lasted far longer than most of her fellow Black Ball Line ships and was eventually destroyed by fire off Geelong in 1869. This photo was taken as the fore and mainmasts crashed into the sea. Shortly afterwards she was scuttled.
Two vessels alongside Circular Quay, Sydney. Together with Melbourne, Sydney was the other main arrival port for emigrants.
Clipper Ships and the Golden Age of Sail Page 5