s, which were worthless unless the blockade-runners were sailing ships too. While blockaders were mostly poor, sluggish ships, blockade-runners were often some of the best ships ever made. They had speeds the Union couldn't match; most sailed at 10 to 14 knots, some could attain speeds of 17 knots fully loaded, which was incredible for the time, and by the end of the war a few had broken 18 knots.[28] Stunned by the superior speeds of blockade-runners, the commander of the blockader USS Dacotah remarked that "The speed of these contraband steamers is beyond all precedent of late. I have never experienced anything like it."[29] Blockade-runners also had the advantage of virtual invisibility. After 1862, most had become fast iron steamers without sails, with light drafts, low silhouettes, and they were often painted a foggy gray color. They burned a smokeless anthracite coal and they liked to run on moonless nights.[30] Thus, a custom-built blockade-runner was "absolutely indiscernible at a cable's length" on a dark night.[31] An officer of the blockader USS Vandalia stationed at Charleston wrote, "We could not see a single vessel going in or out...We have but little doubt that these vessels elude our vigilance at night as the nature of the coast precludes the possibility of our anchoring within at least four miles of the shore-hence a vessel of a few hundred tons...can easily escape by hugging the shore until out of our sight."[32] Since the blockade-runners were so hard to distinguish, blockading vessels often spent hours chasing each other by accident.[33] The blockading fleet was of such poor quality that it was often in shambles. The blockaders frequently suffered breakdowns in machinery and had to leave their stations for long periods of time while the Navy had no replacements to send. In fact, over the course of the war, repair time kept one-third to two-fifths of the vessels constantly away from their stations.[34] This made stati...
