THE CLIPPER · 1856–1864

ROBIN HOOD

BUILT

Wooden tea clipper. Alexander Hall & Sons, Aberdeen, 1856. Yard 205. Cost about £21,655. Built for James Beazley of Liverpool, for the yearly race home with the first China teas.

204 feet long. Beam 35 feet. Draught 21 feet. About 852 tons. Ship-rigged. Figurehead of Robin Hood. House flag of Beazley.

MASTERS

Capt. G. Cobb had her from 1857. Then Capt. J. Mann. On her last China run home, Capt. J. Darlington.

VOYAGES

Eight voyages. London to China, and once to Hobart. In those years she made some £26,000. Hall's most successful tea ship before Flying Spur.

1858: Foochow to London in 99 days with 1,032,660 lbs of tea — Cobb. One of the fastest of that monsoon. Shanghai home in 116 days. Whampoa home in 107. A run of 364 nautical miles in a day. Remembered also for 107 days to San Francisco.

1863 and 1864: Foochow to London twice in 122 days. Mann, then Darlington. In the tea races she stood with Aberdeen's Friar Tuck against Fiery Cross and Kate Carnie.

LAST NIGHT

22 November 1864. London for Hong Kong. In the English Channel, about three miles west of Dungeness, Robin Hood collided with another ship and foundered the same day.

The crew took three boats. The tug Conqueror picked up two. Seven men in the third boat made Dover.

— from the log of Robin Hood

SOURCES

• Aberdeen Maritime Museum — ROBIN HOOD
• Wikipedia — Robin Hood (ship)
• ShipStamps — tea clipper 1856–1864
• Bruzelius — sailing ships register
• Admiralty — collision case, 1865
• Wikimedia — Samuel Walters painting, 1857