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74-414: In the age of sail , many hulls served longer as hulks than they did as functional ships. Wooden ships were often hulked when the hull structure became too old and weak to withstand the stresses of sailing. More recently, ships have been hulked when they become obsolete or when they become uneconomical to operate. A sheer hulk (or shear hulk ) was used in shipbuilding and repair as a floating crane in

148-473: A Sustainable Future for Shipping discusses the potential of a return to wind propulsion through the firsthand experiences of Christiaan De Beukelaer , who spent five months aboard a sailing cargo ship in 2020. Clipper A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel , designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper , which originated in

222-473: A barge. There was no way up, only down-- down to the category of coal hulks ... Having strong solid bottoms ... they could handle the great weight of bulk coal which filled their holds. It was a grimy, untidy, unglamorous end for any vessel which had seen the glory days." The famed clipper Red Jacket ended her days as a coaling hulk in the Cape Verde Islands. One by one these old Champions of

296-448: A cargo-carrying hull that has some sharpness. In the right conditions and with a capable captain, some of these achieved notable quick passages. They were also able to pay their way when the high freight rates often paid to a fast sailing ship were not available (in a fluctuating market). The term "clipper" applied to vessels between these two categories. They often made passages as fast as extreme clippers, but had less difficulty in making

370-505: A database of known hulk assemblages in England. They identified 199 separate hulk assemblages ranging in size from two vessels to over 80. Several of the largest former oil tankers have been converted to floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units, effectively very large floating oil storage tanks. Knock Nevis , by some measures the largest ship ever built, served in this capacity from 2004 until 2010. In 2009 and 2010, two of

444-447: A hulk can accommodate more personnel than the same hull would accommodate as a functional ship. For this role, the hulk is often extensively modified to improve living conditions. Receiving hulks and prison hulks are specialized types of accommodation hulks. During World War II, purpose-built barracks ships were used in this role. A receiving ship is a ship used in harbour to house newly recruited sailors before they are assigned to

518-606: A hull of the same external shape. After 1869, with the opening of the Suez Canal that greatly advantaged steam vessels (see Decline below), the tea trade collapsed for clippers. From the late 1860s until the early 1870s, the clipper trade increasingly focused on the Britain to Australia and New Zealand route, carrying goods and immigrants, services that had begun earlier with the Australian Gold Rush of

592-616: A living when freight rates were lower. The first ships to which the term "clipper" seems to have been applied were the Baltimore clippers, developed in the Chesapeake Bay before the American Revolution , and reached their zenith between 1795 and 1815. They were small, rarely exceeding 200 tons OM . Their hulls were sharp ended and displayed much deadrise. They were rigged as schooners, brigs, or brigantines. In

666-410: A more evolutionary, multiple-step development of the type. ) She measured 494 tons OM , and was built on the enlarged lines of a Baltimore clipper, with sharply raked stem , counter stern , and square rig. Although Ann McKim was the first large clipper ship ever constructed, she cannot be said to have founded the clipper ship era, or even that she directly influenced shipbuilders, since no other ship

740-469: A much shorter European-Asian sea route , which coincided with more fuel-efficient steamships, starting with Agamemnon in 1865. By 1873, the Age of Sail for warships had ended, with HMS  Devastation commissioned in 1871. Devastation was the first class of ocean-going battleships that did not carry sails. Sailing ships continued to be an economical way to transport bulk cargo on long voyages into

814-417: A result, cargo and supplies could reach a foreign port in a fraction of the time it took a sailing ship. Sailing vessels were pushed into narrower and narrower economic niches and gradually disappeared from commercial trade. Today, sailing vessels are only economically viable for small-scale coastal fishing, along with recreational uses such as yachting and passenger sail excursion ships. In recent decades,

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888-502: A ship's crew. During the wars of the 18th and 19th century, almost every nation's navy suffered from a lack of volunteers and had to rely on some form of forced recruitment. The receiving ship partly solved the problem of unwilling recruits escaping; it was difficult to get off the ship without being detected, and most seamen of the era did not know how to swim. Receiving ships were typically older vessels that could still be kept afloat, but were obsolete or no longer seaworthy. The practice

962-525: A ship, and erecting them without the assistance of either a sheer hulk or land-based masting sheer was extremely difficult. The concept of sheer hulks originated with the Royal Navy in the 1690s, and persisted in Britain until the early nineteenth century. Most sheer hulks were decommissioned warships; Chatham , built in 1694, was the first of only three purpose-built vessels. There were at least six sheer hulks in service in Britain at any time throughout

1036-475: A sleek, graceful appearance, less sheer, less freeboard, lower bulwarks, and smaller breadth. They were built for the China tea trade, starting with Falcon in 1859, and continuing until 1870. The earlier ships were made from wood, though some were made from iron, just as some British clippers had been made from iron prior to 1859. In 1863, the first tea clippers of composite construction were brought out, combining

1110-563: A stuck up parvenu tug. Ever and anon as if to emphasize her newly acquired importance, the tug would bury the old-time square-rigged beauty in a cloud of filthy smoke. Imagine the feelings of an ex-Cape Horner under such conditions! There should have been a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Clippers . Everybody who knows anything about ships, knows that they have feelings just the same as anybody else. Hulks were used in pairs during salvage operations. By passing heavy cables under

1184-575: A wreck and connecting them to two hulks, a wreck could be raised using the lifting force of the tide or by changing the buoyancy of the hulks. A hulk assemblage (sometimes known as a ship graveyard ) is where more than one vessel has been hulked in the same location. A project by Museum of London Archaeology (with the Thames Discovery Programme and the Nautical Archaeology Society ) and in 2012 created

1258-406: Is Cutty Sark , preserved in dry dock at Greenwich , United Kingdom. Damaged by fire on 21 May 2007 while undergoing conservation, the ship was permanently elevated 3.0 m above the dry dock floor in 2010 as part of a plan for long-term preservation. Clippers were built for seasonal trades such as tea, where an early cargo was more valuable, or for passenger routes. One passenger ship survives,

1332-458: Is a period in European history that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid-15th) to the mid-19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of naval artillery , and ultimately reached its highest extent at the advent of steam power . Enabled by the advances of the related Age of Navigation , it

1406-636: Is identified as a distinctive element of the early modern period and the Age of Discovery . Like most periodic eras , defining the age is inexact and serves only as a general description. The term is used differently for warships and merchant vessels. By the 14th century naval artillery was employed in Europe, documented at the Battle of Arnemuiden (1338). The 15th century saw the Iberian naval ventures all

1480-538: Is sometimes referred to as the "Golden Age of Sail". The second sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat Experiment , an ex-French lugger ; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. The first iron steamship to go to sea was the 116-ton Aaron Manby , built in 1821 by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks , and became the first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed

1554-465: Is the older of the two survivors, and was transported to Australia for conservation. The clipper legacy appears in collectible cards and in the name of a basketball team . Departures of clipper ships, mostly from New York and Boston to San Francisco, were advertised by clipper-ship sailing cards. These cards, slightly larger than today's postcards, were produced by letterpress and wood engraving on coated card stock. Most clipper cards were printed in

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1628-474: The City of Adelaide designed by William Pile of Sunderland . The fast ships were ideally suited to low-volume, high-profit goods, such as tea, opium , spices, people, and mail. The return could be spectacular. The Challenger returned from Shanghai with "the most valuable cargo of tea and silk ever to be laden in one bottom". Competition among the clippers was public and fierce, with their times recorded in

1702-439: The American Revolution prevented the sending of convicts to North America. Instead, increasingly large numbers of British convicts were held aboard hulks in the major seaports and landed ashore in daylight hours for manual labour such as harbor dredging. From 1786, prison hulks were also used as temporary gaols (jails) for convicts being transported to Australia . A powder hulk was a hulk used to store gunpowder . The hulk

1776-639: The English Channel in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of 8 knots (9 mph, 14 km/h). The first purpose-built steam battleship was the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850. Multiple steam battleships saw action during the Crimean war , especially the Allied (British, French and Ottoman) fleet Bombardment of Sevastopol as part of

1850-572: The Rainbow , had a top speed of 14 knots.) Eleven other instances are reported of a ship's logging 18 knots (33 km/h) or over. Ten of these were recorded by American clippers. Besides the breath-taking 465-nautical-mile (861 km) day's run of the Champion of the Seas , 13 other cases are known of a ship's sailing over 400 nautical miles (740 km) in 24 hours. With few exceptions, though, all

1924-616: The Royal Navy in 1780 in the West Indies ;– represents the earliest draught of what became known as the Baltimore clipper. Vessels of the Baltimore clipper type continued to be built for the slave trade, being useful for escaping enforcement of the British and American legislation prohibiting the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of these Baltimore clippers were captured when working as slavers, condemned by

1998-699: The Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855) . The first ironclad battleship, Gloire , was launched by the French Navy in November 1859. In the March 1862 Battle of Hampton Roads , the ironclad CSS  Virginia fought USS  Monitor , making this the first fight between ironclads. The Suez Canal in the Middle East, which opened in 1869, was more practical for steamships than for sailing ships, achieving

2072-658: The War of 1812 , some were lightly armed, sailing under letters of marque and reprisal , when the type – exemplified by Chasseur , launched at Fells Point, Baltimore in 1814 – became known for her incredible speed; the deep draft enabled the Baltimore clipper to sail close to the wind . Clippers, running the British blockade of Baltimore, came to be recognized for speed rather than cargo space. The type existed as early as 1780. A 1789 drawing of HMS  Berbice  (1780)  – purchased by

2146-597: The fuel efficiency to carry sufficient cargo to make a profitable voyage. The auxiliary steamships struggled to make any profit. The situation changed in 1866 when the Alfred Holt -designed and owned SS Agamemnon made her first voyage to China. Holt had persuaded the Board of Trade to allow higher steam pressures in British merchant vessels. Running at 60  psi instead of the previously permitted 25 psi, and using an efficient compound engine , Agamemnon had

2220-468: The 1700s. The concept spread to France in the 1740s with the commissioning of a sheer hulk at the port of Rochefort. By 1807 the Royal Navy had standardised sheer hulk crew numbers to comprise a Boatswain , mate and six seamen, with larger numbers coming aboard only when the sheers were in use. An accommodation hulk is a hulk used as housing, generally when there is a lack of quarters available ashore. An operational ship may be used for accommodation, but

2294-462: The 1844-built Houqua , 581 tons OM. These larger vessels were built predominantly for use in the China tea trade and known as "tea clippers". Then in 1845 Rainbow , 757 tons OM, the first extreme clipper, was launched in New York. These American clippers were larger vessels designed to sacrifice cargo capacity for speed. They had a bow lengthened above the water, a drawing out and sharpening of

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2368-547: The 1850s and 1860s, and represented the first pronounced use of color in American advertising art. Perhaps 3,500 cards survive. With their rarity and importance as artifacts of nautical, Western, and printing history, clipper cards are valued by both private collectors and institutions. The Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association take their name from the type of ship. After

2442-476: The 1850s. British-built clipper ships and many American-built, British-owned ships were used. Even in the 1880s, sailing ships were still the main carriers of cargo between Britain, and Australia and New Zealand . This trade eventually became unprofitable, and the ageing clipper fleet became unseaworthy. Before the early 18th century, the East India Company paid for its tea mainly in silver. When

2516-428: The 1920s and 1930s, though steamships soon pushed them out of those trades as well. Sailing ships do not require fuel or complex engines to be powered; thus they tended to be more independent from sophisticated dedicated support bases on land. Crucially though, steam-powered ships held a speed advantage and were rarely hindered by adverse winds, freeing steam-powered vessels from the necessity of following trade winds . As

2590-528: The Atlantic. The United States was just starting to recover from this in 1861 when the American Civil War started, causing significant disruption to trade in both Union and Confederate states. As the economic situation deteriorated in 1853, American shipowners either did not order new vessels, or specified an ordinary clipper or a medium clipper instead of an extreme clipper. No extreme clipper

2664-508: The Australia and timber trades. Clipper ships largely ceased being built in American shipyards in 1859 when, unlike the earlier boom years, only four clipper ships were built; a few were built in the 1860s. British clipper ships continued to be built after 1859. From 1859, a new design was developed for British clipper ships that was nothing like the American clippers; these ships continued to be called extreme clippers. The new design had

2738-526: The Chinese emperor chose to embargo European-manufactured commodities and demand payment for all Chinese goods in silver, the price rose, restricting trade. The East India Company began to produce opium in India, something desired by the Chinese as much as tea was by the British. This had to be smuggled into China on smaller, fast-sailing ships, called "opium clippers". Some of these were built specifically for

2812-663: The Netherlands, and other nations also produced some. Clippers sailed all over the world, primarily on the trade routes between the United Kingdom and China, in transatlantic trade, and on the New York-to-San Francisco route around Cape Horn during the California gold rush . Dutch clippers were built beginning in the 1850s for the tea trade and passenger service to Java . The boom years of

2886-536: The Seas disappeared. The Young America was last seen lying off Gibraltar as a coal hulk; and that superb old greyhound of the ocean, the Flying Cloud suffered a similar ignominious ending. She was not even spared the humiliation of concealing her tragic end from the eyes of her former envious rivals, but was condemned to end her days as a New Haven scow towed up the Sound with a load of brick and concrete behind

2960-467: The appropriate court, and sold to owners who then used them as opium clippers – moving from one illegal international trade to another. Ann McKim , built in Baltimore in 1833 by the Kennard & Williamson shipyard, is considered by some to be the original clipper ship. (Maritime historians Howard I. Chapelle and David MacGregor decry the concept of the "first" clipper, preferring

3034-415: The best of both worlds. Composite clippers had the strength of an iron hull framework but with wooden planking that, with properly insulated fastenings, could use copper sheathing without the problem of galvanic corrosion . Copper sheathing prevented fouling and teredo worm , but could not be used on iron hulls. The iron framework of composite clippers was less bulky and lighter, so allowing more cargo in

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3108-418: The block coefficient of fineness or the prismatic coefficient of various clippers, but measured drawings or accurate half models may not exist to calculate either of these figures. An alternative measure of sharpness for hulls of a broadly similar shape is the coefficient of underdeck tonnage, as used by David MacGregor in comparing tea clippers. This could be calculated from the measurements taken to determine

3182-547: The clipper era began in 1843 in response to a growing demand for faster delivery of tea from China and continued with the demand for swift passage to gold fields in California and Australia beginning in 1848 and 1851, respectively. The era ended with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The etymological origin of the word clipper is uncertain, but is believed to be derived from the English language verb "to clip", which at

3256-408: The commercial shipping industry has been reviving interest in wind assisted ships as a way to conserve fuel in the interest of sustainability . A New Age of Sail has been predicted by some experts to occur by 2030, driven by a revolution in energy technology and a desire to reduce carbon emissions from maritime shipping through wind-assisted propulsion . The book Trade Winds: A Voyage to

3330-432: The days of sailing ships , primarily to place the lower masts of a ship under construction or repair. Booms known as sheers were attached to the base of a hulk's lower masts or beam, supported from the top of those masts. Blocks and tackle were then used in such tasks as placing or removing the lower masts of a vessel under construction or repair. These lower masts were the largest and most massive single timbers aboard

3404-455: The final days of the slave trade ( circa 1835–1850) – just as the type was dying out – the term, Baltimore clipper , became common. The common retrospective application of the word "clipper" to this type of vessel has caused confusion. The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest quote (referring to the Baltimore clipper) is from 1824. The dictionary cites Royal Navy officer and novelist Frederick Marryat as using

3478-575: The forward body, and the greatest breadth further aft. Extreme clippers were built in the period 1845 to 1855. In 1851, shipbuilders in Medford, Massachusetts, built what is sometimes called one of the first medium clippers, the Antelope , often called the Antelope of Boston to distinguish her from other ships of the same name. A contemporary ship-design journalist noted that "the design of her model

3552-548: The four TI-class supertankers , then the largest ships afloat, TI Asia and TI Africa , were converted to FPSOs. A vessel's hulking may not be its final use. Scuttling as a blockship , breakwater , artificial reef , or recreational dive site may await. Some are repurposed, for example as a gambling ship ; others are restored and put to new uses, such as a museum ship . Some even return revitalised to sea. When lumber schooner Johanna Smith , "one of only two Pacific Coast steam schooners to be powered by steam turbines,"

3626-609: The fuel efficiency to steam at 10 knots to China and back, with coaling stops at Mauritius on the outward and return legs – crucially carrying sufficient cargo to make a profit. In 1869, the Suez Canal opened, giving steamships a route about 3,000 nautical miles (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) shorter than that taken by sailing ships round the Cape of Good Hope. Despite initial conservatism by tea merchants, by 1871, tea clippers found strong competition from steamers in

3700-399: The hull of a clipper, different maritime historians use different criteria to measure "sharpness", "fine lines" or "fineness", a concept which is explained by comparing a rectangular cuboid with the underwater shape of a vessel's hull. The more material one has to carve off the cuboid to achieve the hull shape, the sharper the hull. Ideally, a maritime historian would be able to look at either

3774-418: The late 18th century. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th-century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total sail area. "Clipper" does not refer to a specific sailplan ; clippers may be schooners , brigs , brigantines , etc., as well as full-rigged ships . Clippers were mostly constructed in British and American shipyards , although France, Brazil,

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3848-476: The many clipper ships built during the mid-19th century, only two are known to survive. The only intact survivor is Cutty Sark , which was preserved as a museum ship in 1954 at Greenwich for public display. The other known survivor is City of Adelaide ; unlike Cutty Sark , she was reduced to a hulk over the years. She eventually sank at her moorings in 1991, but was raised the following year, and remained on dry land for years. Adelaide (or S.V. Carrick )

3922-512: The monsoon winds that prevailed when the first tea crop of the season was ready. These difficult sailing conditions (light and/or contrary winds) dictated the design of tea clippers. The US clippers were designed for the strong winds encountered on their route around Cape Horn. Donald McKay's Sovereign of the Seas reported the highest speed ever achieved by a sailing ship of the era, 22 knots (41 km/h), made while running her easting down to Australia in 1854. (John Griffiths' first clipper,

3996-409: The need to carry a profitable quantity of cargo. A clipper carried a large sail area and a fast hull; by the standards of any other type of sailing ship, a clipper was greatly over-canvassed. The last defining feature of a clipper, in the view of maritime historian David MacGregor, was a captain who had the courage, skill, and determination to get the fastest speed possible out of her. In assessing

4070-537: The newspapers. The last China clippers had peak speeds over 16 knots (30 km/h), but their average speeds over a whole voyage were substantially less. The joint winner of the Great Tea Race of 1866 logged about 15,800 nautical miles on a 99-day trip. This gives an average speed slightly over 6.6 knots (12.2 km/h). The key to a fast passage for a tea clipper was getting across the China Sea against

4144-657: The port-to-port sailing records are held by the American clippers. The 24-hour record of the Champion of the Seas , set in 1854, was not broken until 1984 (by a multihull), or 2001 (by another monohull). The American clippers sailing from the East Coast to the California goldfields were working in a booming market. Freight rates were high everywhere in the first years of the 1850s. This started to fade in late 1853. The ports of California and Australia reported that they were overstocked with goods that had been shipped earlier in

4218-460: The purpose – mostly in India and Britain, such as the 1842-built Ariel , 100 tons OM. Some fruit schooners were bought for this trade, as were some Baltimore clippers. Among the most notable clippers were the China clippers, also called tea clippers, designed to ply the trade routes between Europe and the East Indies . The last example of these still in reasonable condition

4292-503: The registered tonnage, so can be applied to more vessels. An extreme clipper has a hull of great fineness, as judged either by the prismatic coefficient, the coefficient of underdeck tonnage, or some other technical assessment of hull shape. This term has been misapplied in the past, without reference to hull shape. As commercial vessels, these are totally reliant on speed to generate a profit for their owners, as their sharpness limits their cargo-carrying capacity. A medium clipper has

4366-480: The tea ports of China. A typical passage time back to London for a steamer was 58 days, while the fastest clippers could occasionally make the trip in less than 100 days; the average was 123 days in the 1867–68 tea season. The freight rate for a steamer in 1871 was roughly double that paid to a sailing vessel. Some clipper owners were severely caught out by this; several extreme clippers had been launched in 1869, including Cutty Sark , Norman Court and Caliph . Of

4440-483: The term in 1830. British newspaper usage of the term can be found as early as 1832 and in shipping advertisements from 1835. A US court case of 1834 has evidence that discusses a clipper being faster than a brig. A clipper is a sailing vessel designed for speed, a priority that takes precedence over cargo-carrying capacity or building or operating costs. It is not restricted to any one rig (while many were fully rigged ships, others were barques, brigs, or schooners), nor

4514-469: The time meant "to run or fly swiftly". The first application of the term "clipper", in a nautical sense, is likewise uncertain. The type known as the Baltimore clipper originated at the end of the 18th century on the eastern seaboard of the USA. At first, these fast sailing vessels were referred to as "Virginia-built" or "pilot-boat model", with the name "Baltimore-built" appearing during the War of 1812 . In

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4588-626: The way along the African Atlantic coast and across the Atlantic Ocean, starting the Age of Discovery . For warships, the age of sail runs roughly from the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the last significant engagement in which oar -propelled galleys played a major role, to the development of steam-powered warships . The period between the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, when sailing vessels reached their peak of size and complexity (e.g. clippers and windjammers ),

4662-707: The year. This gave an accelerating fall in freight rates that was halted, however, by the start of the Crimean War in March 1854, as many ships were now being chartered by the French and British governments. The end of the Crimean War in April 1856 released all this capacity back on the world shipping markets – the result being a severe slump. The next year had the Panic of 1857 , with effects on both sides of

4736-477: Was a floating warehouse which could be moved as needed to simplify the transfer of gunpowder to warships. Its location, away from land, also reduced the possible damage from an explosion. Service as a coal hulk was usually, but not always, a ship's last. Of the fate of the fast and elegant clipper ships , William L. Carothers wrote, "Clippers functioned well as barges ; their fine ends made for little resistance when under tow ... The ultimate degradation awaited

4810-786: Was a hulk used as a floating prison . They were used extensively in Great Britain , the Royal Navy producing a steady supply of ships too worn-out to use in combat, but still afloat. Their widespread use was a result of the large number of French sailors captured during the Seven Years' War , and continued throughout the Napoleonic and French Revolutionary Wars a half-century later. By 1814, there were eighteen prison hulks operating at Portsmouth, sixteen at Plymouth and ten at Chatham. Prison hulks were also convenient for holding civilian prisoners, commencing in Britain in 1776 when

4884-445: Was built like her, but she may have suggested the clipper design in vessels of ship rig. She did, however, influence the building of Rainbow in 1845, the first extreme clipper ship. In Aberdeen , Scotland, shipbuilders Alexander Hall and Sons developed the "Aberdeen" clipper bow in the late 1830s; the first was Scottish Maid launched in 1839. Scottish Maid , 150 tons OM, was the first British clipper ship. " Scottish Maid

4958-420: Was especially common in the age of wooden ships, since the old hulls would remain afloat for many years in relatively still waters after they had become too weak to withstand the rigors of the open ocean. Receiving ships often served as floating hospitals as many were assigned in locations without shore-based station hospitals. Often the afloat surgeon would take up station on the receiving ship. A prison hulk

5032-555: Was hulked in 1928, she was moored off Long Beach, California and used as a gambling ship until destroyed by a fire of unknown cause. One vessel rescued from this ignominious end was the barque Polly Woodside , now a museum ship in Melbourne, Australia. Another is the barque James Craig , rescued from Recherche Bay in Tasmania , now restored and regularly sailing from Sydney, Australia. Age of sail The Age of Sail

5106-525: Was intended for the Aberdeen-London trade, where speed was crucial to compete with steamships. The Hall brothers tested various hulls in a water tank and found the clipper design most effective. The design was influenced by tonnage regulations. Tonnage measured a ship's cargo capacity and was used to calculate tax and harbour dues. The new 1836 regulations measured depth and breadth with length measured at half midship depth. Extra length above this level

5180-466: Was launched in an American shipyard after the end of 1854 and only a few medium clippers after 1860. By contrast, British trade recovered well at the end of the 1850s. Tea clippers had continued to be launched during the depressed years, apparently little affected by the economic downturn. The long-distance route to China was not realistically challenged by steamships in the early part of the 1860s. No true steamer (as opposed to an auxiliary steamship) had

5254-717: Was tax-free and became a feature of clippers. Scottish Maid proved swift and reliable and the design was widely copied." The earliest British clipper ships were built for trade within the British Isles ( Scottish Maid was built for the Aberdeen to London trade ). Then followed the vast clipper trade of tea, opium, spices, and other goods from the Far East to Europe, and the ships became known as "tea clippers". From 1839, larger American clipper ships started to be built beginning with Akbar , 650 tons OM, in 1839, and including

5328-533: Was the medium clipper Andrew Jackson  – an unresolvable argument exists over timing these voyages "from pilot to pilot"). Flying Cloud was the most famous of the clippers built by Donald McKay . She was known for her extremely close race with the Hornet in 1853; for having a woman navigator, Eleanor Creesy , wife of Josiah Perkins Creesy, who skippered the Flying Cloud on two record-setting voyages from New York to San Francisco; and for sailing in

5402-447: Was the term restricted to any one hull type. Howard Chapelle lists three basic hull types for clippers. The first was characterised by the sharp deadrise and ends found in the Baltimore clipper. The second was a hull with a full midsection and modest deadrise, but sharp ends – this was a development of the hull form of transatlantic packets. The third was more experimental, with deadrise and sharpness being balanced against

5476-619: Was to combine large stowage capacity with good sailing qualities." Antelope was relatively flat-floored and had only an 8-inch deadrise at half-floor. The medium clipper, though still very fast, could carry more cargo. After 1854, extreme clippers were replaced in American shipbuilding yards by medium clippers. The Flying Cloud was a clipper ship built in 1851 that established the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco within weeks of her launching, then broke her own records three years later, which stood at 89 days 8 hours until 1989. (The other contender for this "blue ribbon" title

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