from the Yankee ships, but very fast and able, and racing them in
the tea trade until the Civil War. With them it was often nip and
tuck, as in the contest between the English Lord of the Isles and
the American clipper bark Maury in 1856. The prize was a premium
of one pound per ton for the first ship to reach London with tea
of the new crop. The Lord of the Isles finished loading and
sailed four days ahead of the Maury, and after thirteen thousand
miles of ocean they passed Gravesend within ten minutes of each
other. The British skipper, having the smartest tug and getting
his ship first into dock, won the honors. In a similar race
between the American Sea Serpent and the English Crest of the
Wave, both ships arrived off the Isle of Wight on the same day.
It was a notable fact that the Lord of the Isles was the first
tea clipper built of iron at a date when the use of this stubborn
material was not yet thought of by the men who constructed the
splendid wooden ships of America.

For the peculiar requirements of the tea trade, English maritime
talent was quick to perfect a clipper type which, smaller than
the great Yankee skysail-yarder, was nevertheless most admirable
for its beauty and performance. On both sides of the Atlantic
partizans hotly championed their respective fleets. In 1852 the
American Navigation Club, organized by Boston merchants and
owners, challenged the shipbuilders of Great Britain to race from
a port in England to a port in China and return, for a stake of
$50,000 a side, ships to be not under eight hundred nor over
twelve hundred tons American register. The challenge was aimed at
the Stornaway and the Chrysolite, the two clippers that were
known to be the fastest ships under the British flag. Though this
sporting defiance caused lively discussion, nothing came of it,