Flying Fish USS

[john sefton]

USS FLYING FISH a 2 masted schooner was built as the New York Pilot boat INDEPENDENCE and bought for the Wilkes Expedition 3 Aug 1838.
On 12 August 1838 she was placed under command of Midshipman S R Knox and used as
a Tender for the bigger ships of the expedition.
She was of 96tn. with a Length of 85'6". and a Beam of 226". Crew 15 men.
Leaving Hampton Roads 19 August 1838 with the squadron via Madeira and Rio de Janeiro to Tierra del Fuego, their jumping off point, arriving early 1839. That year they explored Antarctica and islands in the Pacific and Australia.
After a second voyage into antarctica they sailed to New Zealand in April 1840, then via several Pacific islands northward to the Hawaiins where the ships were repaired.
After this with PEACOCK and FLYING FISH they visited the Samoan, Ellice, Kingsmill and Pesccadore islands.
They joined up with the whole squadron July 1841 and sailed to the north west coast of America, Columbia River (loss of PEACOCK) around Vancouver to San Francisco.
From San Francisco they sailed to the South Pacific on 1 November and in mid January 1842 at the Philippines, research of the Sulu Seas arriving at Singapore in February. Here the FLYING FISH was sold, renamed SPEC and became a notorious Opium smuggler.

Marshall Islands SG187

Article by Piet Snijers in Log Book August 1989

[aukepalmhof]

The book the Opium Clippers by B. Lubbock gives the following on the FLYING FISH afterwards.

Bought on an auction in January 1842 at Singapore by Joseph Pybus for 3,700 Dollar, renamed in SPEC, named after speculation.
After she was bought she was repaired, sheated with teak and put a coat of shunam in between the sheating; this made her as tight as a bottle where after she was used in the opium trade to China.
1843 Sold to Captain Cole, he did use the SPEC as an armed escort ship for the trading junks,
October 1848 SPEC was seized near Rugged Island by HMS CHILDERS for attacking a trading junk belonging to Ningpo. She was brought to Hong Kong.

When the case came before the Grand Jury the crew of the junk did not appear as witnesses against Captain Cole nor any of those stated to have been wounded in the affray.
After examining the SPEC’s logbook the Grand Jury after two hour consultation brought in a finding of “no bill.” So Captain Cole and his crew were discharged.

1852 She was nearly captured, being riddled with shot, she escaped by superior sailing.
Thereafter she was mostly running between Ningpo and Shanghai until the seventies.

The end of the SPEC is unclear, Lanning in his History of Shanghai says that she was eventually captured by pirates from Wenehow, while Captain Henry Pybus, on the other hand says she was lost in a typhoon.

Marshall Islands 1988 25c sg187, scott193.