This handsome little ship was built on the Clyde  by J.G. Lawrie in 1867 for Joseph Somes, who was so particular about her appearance that she was always known as "Somes's yacht" while he was alive, and although she never figured prominently in the tea races she was nevertheless considered one of the fastest of all the clippers in the tea fleet.

On her maiden trip to Shanghai she made a splendid run of 96 days and again in 1870, on her passage home from Foochow, she arrived after 98 days. During the seventies she loaded tea a number of times for New York but in the eighties she was again coming home to London, although by this time the great tea races from China were a thing of the past.