Stag Hound
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
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| Name: | Stag Hound |
| Owner: | George B. Upton, Sampson & Tappan, Boston |
| Builder: | Donald McKay, East Boston |
| Launched: | Dec. 7, 1850 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Extreme clipper |
| Tons burthen: | 1534 tons OM, 1100 tons British measurement |
| Length: | 226 ft. LOA |
| Beam: | 39 ft. 8 in. |
| Depth of hold: | 21 ft. |
| Sail plan: | Nearly 11,000 square yards of canvas under full sail; foremast, mainmast, and mizzen. |
| Complement: | 36 ABs, 6 ordinary seamen, and 4 boys on maiden voyage under Capt. Josiah Richardson, Feb. 1, 1851 |
The Stag Hound was launched on December 7, 1850 in East Boston, Massachusetts. Designed by shipbuilder Donald McKay for the California trade, she was briefly the largest merchant ship in the world. She was in active service from 1851 until her total loss in 1861.
The Stag Hound was to be the only true extreme clipper built by Donald McKay. He built many other clippers for speed, but no other clipper hulls were to have the 40" dead rise from half floor that this ship was to have. Many of his other ships are loosely called 'extreme' clippers, but after Stag Hound McKay changed his hull design concept; his yard focused on flat-floored medium clippers masted and sparred for speed up to, and even equal to, an extreme clipper hull.
The commercial success of U.S. clipper ships in the China trade in the 1840s, closely followed by the California gold rush of 1849, made it possible for the designs of square-rigged merchant ships to reach their culmination of development. Merchant firms such as Boston's Sampson & Tappan were able to venture the capital necessary to build extreme clippers, a type of vessel longer, with taller masts, more heavily sparred, and with sharper lines than any built before this time. With the money in hand, McKay and his men built the Stag Hound in only 100 days in late 1850.
"Designed and built by Donald McKay at East Boston, her model was original. The entrance and clearance lines were very long and sharp, slightly convex." The "Boston Atlas" of 1851 described Stag Hound as follows: "Her model may be said to be the original of a new idea in naval architecture ... She is longer and sharper than any other vessel of the merchant service in the world, while her breadth of beam and depth of hold are designed with special reference to stability."
She was built to carry 1,600 registered tons' burden, several hundred tons of freight capacity greater than any other vessel then being built for the California trade. Almost all of the manufactured goods consumed in the California gold fields had to be carried from the United States East Coast.
"When she was launched, the Stag Hound was the largest merchant ship ever built, being 215 feet long, and having a register of 1,535 tons. No less than 15,000 people gathered to see her launched despite the cold, and, as the tallow froze, boiling whale oil was poured upon the ways."
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Wikipedia