clipper, the generic name used very loosely to describe types of very fast sailing ships. The term is said to have been coined because they could clip the time taken on passage by the regular
packet ships, themselves very fast in their day.
The term was first applied to the speedy
fore-and-aft-rigged schooners built in Virginia and Maryland, known as the Baltimore clippers, though they were not really clippers at all. These became famous during the War of 1812 as
blockade runners and
privateers, and subsequently notorious in the
slave trade carrying human cargoes from Africa to the USA. Their hulls were long and low with a
draught deeper
aft than
forward. They also had a very sharp-raked
stem (the true mark of the clipper), and an inclined, overhanging
counter stern, which reduced the area of hull in contact with the water. All these improvements in design were later combined with the three-masted
square rig to produce the beautiful clipper ships of the mid-19th century, the finest productions of the age of sail.
As early as 1833 an enlarged Baltimore clipper, the
Anne McKim, had been given a square rig; and she is now generally acknowledged to be the first true clipper ship, though some hold it to have been the
Rainbow built in 1845 at New York. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 and in Australia in 1850, raising a demand for the fastest passages to both places, and the repeal of the British Navigation Acts in 1849, opening the tea trade from China to London to foreign ships, gave a tremendous fillip to the production of American clippers. In this the outstanding shipbuilder Donald McKay (1810–80), of Boston took the lead, producing first the revolutionary
Stag Hound, then
Flying Fish and
Flying Cloud. These were perhaps his most famous clippers, though his
Sovereign of the Seas was a record-breaker, so much so that she was immortalized in a
shanty. Built in 1852 for the Swallow Tail Line, she made a name for herself through the speed of her voyages on the New York–California run.
As a result of this reputation
Sovereign of the Seas was chartered to James Baines's Black Ball Line of Liverpool, and was used in the Australian wool trade, setting a new record of 65 days for the passage from London to Melbourne, a record which remained standing for 30 years until beaten by the famous clipper
Thermopylae. She also established the all-time record of 13 days, 14 hours for a sailing passage from New York to Liverpool, being credited with a speed of 22 knots at times. Her performance impressed Baines so much that he ordered another four clippers from McKay, all of which were to become famous in the history of these great sailing ships: the
Lightning,
Champion of the Seas,
James Baines, and
Donald McKay, all built in 1854. Other American flyers were the New York-built
Challenge (see ‘bucko’
mate), and the Black Ball liner
Marco Polo, built at St John's, New Brunswick, which broke all records for passages to and from Australia in 1852–3.
This competition now spurred British shipowners and
shipbuilding. Up to this time they had been mainly content with improving the sailing quality of the
Blackwall frigates, though schooner-rigged ships had been built since 1839 by Alexander Hall & Sons of Aberdeen for the England to Scotland passenger trade, and one of them, the
Scottish Maid,
launched in 1847 and now regarded as the first British clipper ship, had reached London from Leith in 33 hours. The same firm now built the first small British clippers, the
Stornaway and
Chrysolite, for the tea trade, while R. & H. Green of Blackwall produced the
Challenger.
The financial depression of 1857 and the American Civil War (1861–5) resulted in a decline in American commercial shipbuilding and in its place led to a revival in Britain which was to result in the golden age of the tea clipper. Tea from China was a very profitable cargo in those days and several clippers were specially built for the trade. The first arrivals in London of the new crop each year commanded the highest prices. The famous British clipper
Fiery Cross, built by Chaloner of Liverpool in 1860, was the winner of the premium for the first ship home on no less than four occasions.
Robert Steele (
fl. 1840–70), of Greenock, became one of the best known of the builders of tea clippers. Among them were the
Taeping,
Aerial,
Sir Lancelot—said to be the most beautiful of all the clipper ships—and the
Serica. All these ships were involved in the most famous of all the annual tea clipper races when the
Fiery Cross left Foochow on 29 May 1866, the
Aerial,
Taeping, and
Serica on the 30 May, and the
Taitsing on the following day. The
Taeping docked in London at 2145 on 6 September, the
Aerial half an hour later, and the
Serica at 2345 after having sailed the 25,600 km (16,000 mls.) from Foochow. The
Fiery Cross and
Taitsing both reached London two days later. The
Thermopylae and another tea clipper,
Cutty Sark, which had been built to rival her, featured in another famous race, starting from Foochow in 1872, but off Cape Province, South Africa, the latter lost her
rudder in a
gale.
The opening of the
Suez Canal in 1869 struck at the
raison d'être of the tea clippers, making the long trip round the Cape of Good Hope unprofitable for their specialized
freight. For a time these ships transferred to carrying wool from Australia, but were soon outmoded in a trade in which large cargoes, small crews, and less speed were more economical; these were better provided by the large, steel-hulled, four- and five-masted
barques with which the age of commercial sail finally came to an end.
The literature on clipper ships is extensive, but some of the most authoritative books on the subject were written by Basil Lubbock (1876–1944). His titles include
Round the Horn before the Mast: The China Clippers (1919),
The Colonial Clippers (1921),
The Log of the Cutty Sark (1924),
The Down Easters (1929), and
The Nitrate Clippers (1933). More recent titles include: B. Bathe,
Seven Centuries of Sea Travel (1972), J. Jobé (ed.),
The Great Age of Sail (1967), F. Knight,
The Clipper Ship (1973), O. Howe and F. Matthews,
American Clipper Ships, 1833–1858, 2 vols. (1986), and R. McKay,
Donald McKay and his Famous Sailing Ships (1995).
