Launch of the Great Republic
- When
- October 4, 1853
- Where
- Boston, Massachusetts (launch locality; exact site not stated)
Donald McKay's Great Republic was launched at Boston in October 1853, postponed from September 4 by timber supply problems, as the largest wooden ship then built.
The launch had been planned for September 4, 1853—Donald McKay's birthday—but was postponed to October 4 due to problems with timber supplies. Designed by McKay as a four-deck, four-masted medium clipper barque of 4,555 tons registry, built for trade on his own account to Australia, the Great Republic was the largest wooden ship in the world when launched. The exact launch site within Boston is not stated in the sources; McKay's shipyard was on Border Street, East Boston.
Sources
- Great Republic (1853 clipper) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-25
- Donald McKay Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-15
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.