The Australian Blackball Packet Royal Dane- Montague Dawson

Each print is hand numbered, accompanied by a certificate signed by the Master Printer and is numbered to match the print. The editions are limited to 1880 copies.

Image Size: 30 x 22 inches
Paper Size: 34 x 26 inches

'Royal Dane' began life as an American clipper ship under the name 'Sierra Nevada' but she was sold into British registry after nine years and assumed her second name. Built in New Hampshire by Tobey and Littlefield, she was launched in May 1854. She was 230ft long with a beam of 44.5ft and a weight of 1,942 tons. Captain Penhallow described the ship as “easy in motion, stiff, and an excellent carrier of sail”; he was to be her Master for her first four years at sea.Royal Dane originally carried as a figurehead an Indian warrior, but she lost the figurehead and her bowsprit during her first voyage to Liverpool in April 1855 in a collision and then broke her back in an accident when entering the Wellington dock. Her owner’s case against the dock became embroiled in the English courts and she was eventually sold, repaired and returned to sea in November 1855.

Subsequently she undertook a number of notably fast passages, including a 97-day trip from Boston to San Francisco and then 98 days home to New York from San Francisco, both times via Cape Horn, where she was delayed by bad weather.Her owner’s financial problems as a result of the American Civil War forced the sale of Royal Dane and many other notable US vessels, and this loss from the American register of so many notable ships became known as “the flight from the flag”. Sierra Nevada was eventually sold to Mackay and Baines for their Black Ball line of Australian packets for £10,750 and was renamed 'Royal Dane'. She proved to be a success as an emigrant ship, running to and from Australia, but as steam began to take over from the sailing packets she was sold again for more standard cargo-carrying duties. Eventually she was wrecked off the coast of Chile in 1877.