SHIPPING.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 787, 29 December 1876, Page 2

SHIPPING.

PORT OF LYTTELTON, Weather Report ; Dec 29—8 a.m., wind N.E, light; weather, clear blue sky. Barometer, 30.06 ; thermometer, 70. High Water : To-morrow —Morning, 2.57 ; afternoon, 3.36. ARRIVED. Dec 29-Albion, s.s, 578 tons, Clark, from Sydney, via Wellington. Passengers— Saloon, from Sydney: Messrs Steel and Hegaroy. Steerage: Four. From Coast ; Mr Compton. Steerage : Two. Dec 29—Rhoderick Dim, brigantine, 103 tons, Amodeo, from Kaipara. CLEARED. Dec 29 —Albion, s.s., 598 tons, Clark, for Melbourne, via South. Dec 29—Derwent, brig, 221 tons, Thompson, for Bluff, in ballast. D ec 29—T, B. Taylor, schooner, 54 tons, Smith, for Pelorus Sound. The s.s. Albion arrived this morning from Sydney, via the Coast, at 11 a.m. She sails South this evening. Tha brigantine Rhoderick Dhu arrived from Kaipara after a five days’ passage. She reports the Marion and Onward schooners and the brig Byron as having sailed thence for this port, THE LYTTELTON EEQATTA. The “ New Zealand Times," of December 23rd, Bayß .—The sailing races which will take place in Lyttelton in a short time will be well contested. For the Yacht race, Auckland sends down one of her fleetest crafts, which, to judge from the accounts of her performance, as given in the Northern papers, will maintain the honor of Auckland shipbuilders. Two smart fore-and-ait schooners—the Belle Brandon and Minnehaha—from Auckland, are to go also to Lyttelton to compete in the Trading vessels’ race, and as these vessels have been famous in the North as clippers, we should not be at all surprised to see one of them pull the race off. An Auckland contemporary says : Apropos of yacht sailing, a few words about tlie fastest craft now afloat will interest nautical men. The fastest yacht afloat at the present time is the Ocean Queen, which was constructed by a shipbuilder at Bombay. With everything in her favor she can make 20 knots an hour. The masts of the Ocean Queen rake heavily forward, and she may be termed ketch-rigged, as her largest sail is forward. She onlv carries two sails, and they much resemble those triangular sails carried by island canoes. Unlike most yachts, her greatest draught of water is forward, and her smallest amidships, so that her keel is of concave shape, or quite the opposite of the Sydney yacht Xarlfa. Next to the Ocean Queen comes the American yacht Amaryllis, •which is built on the catamaran principle, and which lately defeated all the crack centreboard and keel yachts of America. But perhaps the Amaryllis being of such extraordinary build, should not rank with ordinary yachts, being not a vessel, but a mere sailing machine. Far different from these was the celebrated yacht America, built for ocean sailing, and which won her laurels in 1851. Modern shipbuilders, with all their skill, have never yet improved upon her. Her masts raked heavily aft, and she drew nearly three times as much water aft as forward. Perhaps some of our shipbuilders may be able to inform us how two vessels built and rigged on such opposite principles as the Ocean Queen and America, should both have such wonderful sailing qualities.