66 CLASSIC BOAT SEPTEMBER 2016GORDON BENNETT
her launch, the civil war was raging and Bennett
promptly loaned his fleet little vessel – and himself as
her commander – to the US Government to help with
the war effort. For most of 1861 she patrolled New
York harbour as a customs cutter, before seeing active
service in assisting with the capture of Fernandina,
Florida. All of this had turned Bennett into a
consummate sailor and it was little surprise that the
swashbuckling playboy opted to take part himself.
Yet he chose another man to command his yacht in
the race, Captain Samuel Samuels, Bennett’s very own
ace in the hole.SAMUEL SAMUELS
Captain ‘Bully’ Samuels was already something of a
legend in 1866. He was an old school Clipper captain
who had risen to fame as commander of the transatlantic
packet Dreadnought. Owned by the ill-starred Red
Cross Line, she was widely known by the nickname of
‘The wild boat of the Atlantic’.
She had made a name for herself in the 1850s for her
phenomenal speed. With her tall spars, Clipper looks and
huge red cross on her fore topsail, this yacht became an
iconic symbol to Americans of their supremacy on the
transatlantic run. Samuels had commanded her
throughout these glory years, terrorising crew with a fist
of iron and two levelled pistols when required. He was a
captain of the old school, having come up ‘through the
hawse hole’ as they put it, meaning that he had worked
his way through the ranks from ship’s boy to
commander. On the way, he had spent time in jail fordesertion in Mobile, Alabama, flirted with a career
treading the boards as part of a vaudeville act, and had
more adventures in his 41 years than most manage in a
lifetime. His most famed exploit was taking on a
mutinous crew of ‘Packet Rats’, shipped in Liverpool
who had ganged together in order to “clip the wings of
the bloody old Dreadnought and send her skipper for a
swim” as he picturesquely put it in his memoirs.
In plain terms they planned to murder him. The plan
backfired and Samuels cowed the notorious gang with
the help of two pistols, his faithful Newfoundland dog,
Wallace and a group of German passengers armed with
steel bars. He had only departed the Dreadnought after
mangling his leg during a violent storm which also
disabled the Clipper’s rudder. Unable to turn the
Dreadnought to run before the wind to safety in the
Azores, Samuels had instead sailed her backwards for
300 miles to Fayal. Here, he was forced to relinquish
command due to his severe injuries.
This was the kind of consummate sailor that
Bennett chose to command his schooner, and in doing
so he ensured that the connection between Clipper ship
racing and offshore yacht racing was stronger than
anyone generally realises. Samuels, the last man to race
a Clipper in earnest across the Atlantic, was the first to
pick up the reins of offshore yacht racing. Indeed, the
Fleetwing, Vesta and Henrietta were racing the Clipper
ships in very real terms, for it was the records of these
lordly merchant vessels they were out to smash.
Samuels’ Dreadnought had done the passage in 13
days and 21 hours, but the record was held by the
Clipper James Baines, which, in 1854 had made the
run in 12 days and six hours, logging 22 knots at
times. This was the benchmark which the three little
schooners were racing against, not to mention that
small matter of the $60,000 purse for the winner.
If Lorillard and Osgood were in this race for glory
alone, Bennett had another reason to take part and it
certainly wasn’t the money. Far more likely was that
his father, Gordon Bennett Snr was still the proprietor
of the New York Herald and this stern, cigar
chomping, bellicose old patriarch viewed his son and
the heir to his empire as an utter waste of space. The
fact is that the race at last gave Bennett Jr the chance
to prove to his father that he amounted to something.
In turn, Bennett Snr saw the possibility of
generating yet more publicity for his beloved Herald.
On learning of the Atlantic contest he summoned in
one of his star reporters, Stephen Fiske, to cover the
race, addressing him thus: “This race. Yachts.
One of ’em’s me son’s. Cover it. No fooling about.
Fall in the sea for all I care but get the news.
Properly. Understood?”
Thus the quaking reporter left the office, doubtless
with his bosses’ signature phrase “Never let a good
story be ruined by over-verification” ringing in his ears.
It says much for his fear of Bennett Snr that he
willingly risked the North Atlantic in December in
order to get the story.Sam Jefferson’s book Gordon Bennett and the First
Yacht Race Across the Atlantic is available at £14.99
from bloomsbury.comCaptain ‘Bully’
Samuels was
already
something of a
legend having
skippered the
Dreadnought,
terrorising crew
with a fist of
iron and two
levelled pistols