James Baines (clipper) - General Description

General Description

Ship builder Donald McKay laid all his skills and professional experience in the construction of this passenger carrying clipper ship, small faults that had been detected by him before in the sister ships were fixed during the building of the James Baines. Regarding her lines, stem, and bow, she was not as sharp and hollow-lined as her sister ship Lightning or as "full" as her other sister ship Champion of the Seas. The ship's main frame was of white oak, the ceiling, planking, deck-frames and keelsons, of hard pine. The ship's hull was diagonally braced with iron, and square-fastened, and all the keelsons and waterways are scarphed and keyed. It was said in her time the style in which the James Baines's hull was designed and built, both inside and outside, has not been surpassed or equalled, by any other ship Donald McKay has ever constructed. The stern and the bow including the cutwater were beautifully adorned with gilded carvings, the ship's hull was painted black with blue waterways and a blue underwater ship. Her mast-heads and yards were black and equipped with iron caps, the hoops on her masts were held in white as well as the deck houses and rails. On Mr James Baines order the ship was equipped and fitted with the best and most modern ship improvements (pumps, windlasses & winches, Crane's self-acting chain-stoppers (invented in 1852)).

As she was built for a passenger shipping line she provided luxury (1st class) accommodations equipped with the finest furniture available and mahogany panelling (wainscots), furthermore with standard rooms for the transportation of 700 passengers. The ship had also state-rooms and dining-rooms of the finest design. Three decks, a poop deck, two deck houses and a topgallant forecastle provided the accommodations for three classes of passengers and the 100 men crew whose bunks were built in the forecastle and in a deck house abaft the foremast. The ladies' cabin was in the stern section (aft) as well as the captain's rooms, the gentlemen's rooms were amidships to the ships's sides. All passenger and crew rooms were well ventilated and provided with sufficient light. The James Baines was not only a beautiful but also a very fast ship holding still sailing ship records as that of her first voyage from Boston to Liverpool.

Namesake of the James Baines was her owner James Baines of James Baines & Co. of Liverpool and Australian packets and was once described as "the most perfect ship afloat." Upon her first arrival in Liverpool a well-known Liverpool ship owner wrote to a Boston newspaper: “You want to know what professional men say about the ship James Baines? Her unrivalled passage, of course, brought her prominently before the public and she has already been visited by many of the most eminent mechanics of the country. She is so strongly built, so finely finished and is so beautiful a model that even envy cannot prompt a fault against her. On all hands she has been praised as the most perfect sailing ship that ever entered the river Mersey.” (Cited from) - Her figurehead was, of course, a perfect likeness of James Baines, owner of the famous Black Ball Line of Liverpool in tailcoat and top hat, carved by Liverpoolian ship carver William Dodd of the Allan and Clotworthy's yard. Mr James Baines shipped the figurehead to the McKay shipyard, securely packed in a sturdy case.