12 Facts About Donald McKay

Donald McKay was a Nova Scotian-born American designer and builder of sailing ships, famed for his record-setting extreme clippers.

Donald McKay was named after his grandfather, Captain Donald McKay, a British officer, who after the Revolutionary war moved to Nova Scotia from the Scottish Highlands.

Currier was very impressed with Donald McKay and offered him a five-year contract, which Donald McKay refused driven by desire to own his own business.

Two years later, with McKay now designing ships on his own, he and Currier parted ways and McKay went into business with a man named William Picket, building the packet ships St George and John R Skiddy.

The partnership with Picket was "pleasant and profitable", but after Donald McKay built the Joshua Bates for Enoch Train's new packet line to Liverpool in 1844, Train persuaded him to move to East Boston and start his own shipyard there.

In 1869, under financial pressure from previous losses, Donald McKay sold his shipyard and worked for some time in other shipyards.

Donald McKay retired to his farm near Hamilton, Massachusetts, spending the rest of his life there.

Donald McKay died in 1880 in relative poverty and was buried in Newburyport.

Donald McKay's designs were characterized by a long fine bow with increasing hollow and waterlines.

Donald McKay was perhaps influenced by the writings of John W Griffiths, designer of the China clipper Rainbow in 1845.

Donald McKay's hulls had a shorter afterbody, putting the center of buoyancy farther aft than was typical of the period, as well as a full midsection with rather flat bottom.

Donald McKay was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame on November 9,2019.