“Away, away, what nectar spray she flings about her bow.
What diamonds flash in every splash that drips upon my brow.
She knows she bears a soul that dares, and loves the dark rough sea;
More sail! I say, let, let her fly. This is the hour for me.”
A few days of unusual “God-send” good weather marked the speedy start of the “Sheila’s” recorded first voyage from Calcutta to the West Indies, but before long “it was blowing and raining all the time, with a nasty sea running.” The Captain of the fast, new British clipper would recall “it was as much as we could do to hold on to what we had” but he still engaged and won an impromptu race with a pair of similar sailing ships that had left the Indian port three days earlier in 1877.
During the night, the powerful “Sheila” even swept past “its nearest competitor,” the legendary tea clipper, the then eight-year-old “Cutty Sark” off the wild African coast in a “pretty” but “far too squally” contest. Built on the Scottish River Clyde as well, but for the rival Jock Willis Shipping Line, the vessel travelling from “Whampoa (China) bound for New York” with general cargo, mostly tea, was left six miles astern.
