(click to enlarge)
The clipper Flying Cloud (credit: Courtesy of the Peabody Museum, Salem, Mass.)

Classic sailing ship of the 19th century, renowned for its beauty, grace, and speed. Apparently originating with the small, swift coastal packet known as the Baltimore clipper, the true clipper evolved first in the U.S. (c. 1833) and later in Britain. It was a long, slim, graceful vessel with a projecting bow, a streamlined hull, and an exceptionally large spread of sail on three tall masts. Clippers carried tea from China and goldminers to California. Famous clippers included the American Flying Cloud and the British Cutty Sark. Though much faster than the early steamships (already in use when the clipper appeared), they were eventually outrun by improved steamship models and largely disappeared from commercial use in the 1870s.

For more information on clipper ship, visit Britannica.com.

Clipper Ships, long, narrow wooden vessels with lofty canvas sails, reigned as the world's fastest oceangoing ships from about 1843 to 1868. The word "clipper" might have originated from "clip," meaning to run swiftly. Tea from China quickly lost its flavor in the hold of a ship, and about 1843 the clippers began quicker delivery of that commodity. The discovery of gold in California provided another incentive for speed. After carrying their cargoes of gold prospectors and merchandise around Cape Horn to California, the ships would either return to Atlantic ports for another such cargo or would cross the Pacific Ocean to China and be loaded with tea, silk, and spices.

Clippers were more dependable than earlier ships. They strained less in a heavy sea and crossed belts of calm better than low-rigged vessels. The swift schooners built at Baltimore during the War of 1812 were known as Baltimore clippers, but the first real clipper was the Ann McKim, built there in 1832. Beginning about 1850 the California clippers increased rapidly in size, ranging from 1,500 to 2,000 tons register. The Stag-Hound, built in 1850, was the pioneer clipper of this type. The Flying Cloud, built in Boston in 1851, sailed to San Francisco in eighty-nine days; the Andrew Jackson and the Flying Fish achieved similar feats. It was more than a quarter of a century before the steamship was able to break the speed records of the fastest clippers. After the Civil War, American Shipbuilding for overseas carrying trade declined. Although a few more clipper ships were built, the steam-ships gradually replaced them.

Bibliography

Cutler, Carl C. Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of the American Clipper Ship. 3d ed. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1984. The original edition was published New York: Halcyon House, 1930.

Howe, Octavius T., and Frederick C. Matthews. American Clip-per Ships, 1833–1858. New York: Dover, 1986.

—Charles Garrett Vannest/A. R.