He set three sailing speed records; his time of 74 days from Hong Kong to New York City has never been bettered in a sail-powered vessel.

[2] His captain aboard the Britannia, Charles H. Marshall, later bought the packet South America and made Waterman the skipper.

[3] In 1836, Waterman accepted command of the cotton freighter Natchez, owned by Howland & Aspinwall, a Manhattan merchant company.

[9] Handsomely rewarded by Howland & Aspinwall for his unequaled performance aboard the Sea Witch, Waterman briefly retired from seafaring.

That very first day, Waterman quarreled with and dismissed his first mate, and replaced him with James Douglass, hired off the deck of a packet at Sandy Hook.

[10] Unfortunately for all concerned, N. L. & G. Griswold had failed to provide Challenge with an experienced crew; the huge demand for sailors occasioned by clippers sailing for the California gold fields had left few competent seamen in New York.

[11] Waterman used considerable violence against this crew, personally slashing the cook's scalp with a carving knife, and beating at least two sick sailors for working too slowly.

As the Challenge neared Rio de Janeiro, several crewmen conspired to kill Douglass, inflicting 12 knife wounds on him.

[14] After rounding Cape Horn, Waterman discovered another of the mutineers who had been hiding in the forecastle, had him dragged on deck, and broke his arm with a club, then had him shackled in the sick bay by the fractured limb.

[18] "The Challenge cases ... were the first 'hellship' trials, and by the very fact that they did occur, they made possible, many years later, the freedom of the American merchant sailor from the tyranny of masters and mates,"[17] paving the way for the Seamen's Act of 1915.