Donald McKay

Donald McKay
Born	September 4, 1810 Jordon Falls, Nova Scotia
Died	September 20, 1880 Hamilton, MA, USA
Known for	Flying Cloud
Occupation	Ship Designer
Spouse	Mary Cressy Litchfield

Donald McKay (1810–1880) was a Canadian-born American designer and builder of sailing ships. He was born in Jordon Falls, Shelburne County on Nova Scotia's South Shore. In 1841, he opened his first yard in Newburyport and moved to East Boston in 1845. McKay designed and built some of the most successful clippers ever built.

McKay's clippers

• Stag Hound 1850
• Flying Cloud 1851
• Sovereign of the Seas 1852, named after HMS Sovereign of the Seas
• Donald McKay 1853
• Great Republic 1853
• Champion of the Seas 1854
• Lightning 1854
• James Baines 1854

McKay's Design Practices

McKay's designs were characterized by a long, fine bow with increasingly hollow waterlines as his career progressed. He was perhaps influenced by the writings of John Griffiths, designer of Rainbow (1848), an early China clipper. The long, hollow bow helped to penetrate rather than ride over the wave produced by the hull at high speeds, reducing resistance as hull speed is approached. Hull speed is the natural speed of a wave the same length as the ship, in knots, <math>1.34 \times \sqrt{\mbox{LWL}}</math>, with LWL the waterline length in feet. His hulls had a shorter afterbody, putting the center of buoyancy farther aft, than was typical of the period, and well as a full midsection with rather flat bottom. These characteristics led to lower drag at high speed compared to contemporary ships of similar length, as well as great stability which translated into the ability to carry sail in high winds (more power in extreme conditions). His fishing schooner design was even more radical than his clippers, being a huge flat-bottomed dinghy similar in form to 20th century planing boats. These design changes were not favorable for light wind conditions such as were expected on the China trade, but were helpful in the California and Australian trades.

Records Set by McKay's Clippers

• Lightning set multiple records
  • 436 miles in a 24-hour period
  • 64 days from Melbourne, Australia, to Liverpool, England
• James Baines logged a speed of 21 knots (June 18, 1856)
• Flying Cloud made two 89-day passages New York to San Francisco^[1]

McKay's other Ships

McKay is also probably the designer of two fishing schooners of an extreme clipper design, the Mary B. Dyer and H & R. Attwood.^[2] During the American Civil War he was contracted by the US Navy to build the USS Nausett, one of the few Casco-class monitors to be commissioned. There is a monument to McKay in South Boston, near Fort Independence, overlooking the channel, that lists all his ships. There were more than 30.

Trivia

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• Pan Am named one of their Boeing 747s Clipper Donald McKay in his honor.

References

External links

• Apprenticeship
• Donald MacKay Memorial, Jordan Falls, NS
• Gravestone of Donald McKay at Oak Hill Cemetery, Newburyport, MA