Clipper
Very fast sailing ship of the 19th century / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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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 the late 18th century.
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: the "History" of clipper ships is very brief on the 20 year period spanning from the 1870s to the 1890s. This information should also be moved into the "Decline" section if needed. Another remedy is to make sub-headers under "History". (February 2024) |
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, 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.[1]
The boom years of 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.[2]