The _Charlotte Padbury_ was a wood barque of 640 tons, she was built at Falmouth in 1874 for W. Padbury, of Fremantle.
The _Helena Mena_ was a composite barque of 673 tons, and was built by Thomson, of Sunderland, in 1876, for J. Wilson, of London.
The _Charlotte Padbury_ was wrecked in April, 1903, and the _Helena Mena_ was sold to the French for £1275 in 1898.
These were two of the last of the wood and composite clippers, for by the early seventies every shipowner, however conservative, found himself compelled to go in for iron ships, if he was to compete successfully in the world’s freight market.
[B] The green with which the Aberdeen White Star ships were painted was a composite paint always known as Aberdeen green.
Fill us with wool till we’re nigh overflowing, Send us away when strong breezes are blowing, And we’ll show all the others the road. The tug boat is coming for us in the morn, We’ll drive her like blazes from here to the Horn, For the main royal shall never be stowed.—
The Introduction of Iron in Shipbuilding.
It was the introduction of iron, as the chief material for the building of ships, that contributed more than anything else to the supremacy of the British Mercantile Marine.
Iron killed the competition of our American cousins, who, as long as wood was the chief factor, were able to give us a hard fight as to which should lead the world in shipbuilding. Yes, it was the advent of iron, more than the North and South War, more than the sinkings of the _Alabama_, more than any slump in freights or foolish shipping legislation on the part of the United States, and more even than our adoption of Free Trade, which made the British nation the carriers of the world.
Many people think, and they have been fostered in their belief by the good old conservative wood and hemp sailor, that iron also sounded the knell of the sailing ship. This is, of course, to a certain degree true, yet sail continued to flourish for 50 years after the advent of iron, and up to the late nineties no finer ships had ever been built or sailed than the iron clippers from the Clyde and other British shipyards.
It was the deterioration of the man before the mast which the advent of steam brought about, and the cutting of freights induced by coal, the cry for bigger ships and more luxury, and also, that soulless modern institution, the company manager, which drove sailing ships down and down in the trade of the world; these and the growing desire for mechanical speed, which have invaded almost every department of life, killed the windjammer.