The _Sovereign of the Seas_ did even better still. But yet again the English genius for improving on other peoples’ ideas showed itself at a critical point in the history of shipbuilding. Shipbuilders and architects put their heads together and decided to meet the American on his own terms. If he had built clippers that had flown across the sea, it was their duty to build something that would fly faster still; so a new chapter in British shipping begins, and headed by Mr. Richard Green, the famous Blackwall shipbuilder and shipowner, England built for herself the real thing in clippers, quite early in the ’sixties. The _Challenger_ was in 1850 laid down in Messrs. Green’s yard to sail against the American _Challenge_, in an ocean race from China, and won. Besides Messrs. Green, other British firms entered the contest and built splendid clippers, amongst whom may be mentioned Messrs. J. Thompson & Co., of Aberdeen, who founded the well-known line of Aberdeen clippers; Messrs. Steele, of Greenock, and Messrs. Scott, of Greenock. Built of teak planking with iron frames, these new vessels were made to last, unlike the American ships, whose life was quite short, built as they were merely out of soft stuff. The enormous spars which the new British ships were given caused no little surprise at that time, but they managed to carry them none the less. The _Great Republic_, launched in the early ’fifties, was the first vessel to carry double topsails. Owned and built in America, she was 305 feet long, 53 feet broad, 30 feet deep, and had a tonnage of 3400. She carried also double t’gallant sails as well as staysails, and was barque rigged, having 4500 square yards of canvas. So perfectly was she rigged that she was handled by a crew of 100. She was chartered by the French Government to carry troops to the Crimea,[113] had four decks and was strengthened with iron lattice-work.