In the eighties, when the tea trade was entirely in the hands of the steamers, this pride of place in Sydney was always kept for Willis’ famous clipper, _Cutty Sark_, no other ship, either wood or iron built, being able to rival her passages both out and home in the wool trade.
The London wool sales took place in January, February and March, and the lists of the first sales were closed as soon as a sufficient number of cargoes had arrived or been reported in the Channel. Thus it was the aim of every skipper to get reported as soon as possible after reaching the Channel, as the cargoes of ships reported in the Channel by noon on the opening day of the sales were included in the sale lists. Whereas if a captain missed the sales, his cargo would have to be warehoused for perhaps two or three months until the next sales, thus involving extra expenses such as warehouse charges, loss of interest, etc., not to speak of the possibility of a fall in the price of wool.
In those days signal stations were not as numerous on our coasts as they are now, and so wool clippers on arriving in the Channel kept a specially sharp look-out for fishing smacks or pilot cutters to take their reports on shore. Occasionally the captains of the late-starting, crack ships were promised substantial cheques if they caught the sales and truly it was money well earned.
In the present days of steam, steel and water ballast, stevedoring is no longer the fine art which it used to be in the days of masts and yards, clipper keels and oak frames.
As every sailor knows, no two ships are alike, even when built from the same moulds; and though this is the case with every water-borne vessel, it is specially noticeable with that almost living thing—the sailing ship. Not only does every sailing ship have its own character as regards its stability, but its character often changes with age, etc., and no tables can give the exact way in which its cargo should be loaded as regards weights and trim. The hand books on the subject give rough, general rules, but the captain of a ship, from his own first hand knowledge of his ship’s peculiarities, would always give careful instructions to the stevedore as to how he wanted the weights of the cargo placed or distributed.