Construction
Flying Cloud is popularly called an extreme clipper, as are many of Donald McKay's ships, but as her dead rise was less than 40" she was not. Donald McKay built many fast clipper ships but only one, the Stag Hound was an extreme clipper, even if others may have been advertised as such. It was popular to advertise clippers as "extreme" because of the popular conception of speed.
Flying Cloud was built in East Boston, Massachusetts, and intended for Enoch Train of Boston, who paid $50,000 for her construction. While still under construction, she was purchased by Grinnell, Minturn & Co., of New York, for $90,000, which represented a huge profit for Train & Co.
A reporter for the Boston Daily Atlas of 25 April 1851 wrote, "If great length, sharpness of ends, with proportionate breadth and depth, conduce to speed, the Flying Cloud must be uncommonly swift, for in all these she is great. Her length on the keel is 208 feet, on deck 225, and over all, from the knightheads to the taffrail, 235— extreme breadth of beam 41 feet, depth of hold 21½, including 7 feet 8 inches height of between-decks, sea-rise at half floor 20 inches, rounding of sides 6 inches, and sheer about 3 feet."
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