Clipper ShU' Ocean Herald, Iroin a trencli print in the 

 Watercraft Collection (USNM 159928). She was 

 built at Damariscotta, Maine, in 1853, and was sold 

 to France in 1 856 and renamed Malabar. Said to be a 

 medium-clipper model, her register tonnage was 1 658. 

 {Smithsonian photo 44628-c.) 



in their employ. Historians of the clipper ship have 

 at times considered this as the vessel marking the 

 beginning of the clipper-ship period, although the 

 first ship-rigged clipper in the China trade was 

 probably the Ann McKim. 



What is a clipper ship? Much space has been given 

 to this question by maritime writers and historians 

 both in the United States and Britain. There are 

 many answers, the fundamental one being that a 

 clipper ship is one that can be sailed at a very high 

 rate of speed. This definition is inherent in the word 

 "clipper," which to Americans of the 19th century 

 meant fast moving. To the naval architect or master 

 shipwright the clipper had to have a hull capable of 

 high speed and a rig to match. In the technical 

 sense, then, a clipper was a very sharp-ended vessel 

 having a hull form that possessed a high potential 

 speed and that could carry a spread of sail sufficient 



to drive the vessel at this high potential speed, at 

 least on occasion. 



A high potential speed depends on size, particularly 

 length, in ships of sufficient displacement to carry a 

 payload of cargo. Therefore, the numerical expres- 

 sion of high potential speed must vary. For example, 

 the Baltimore clippers of the privateer type are re- 

 corded as having sailed at a speed of 13 knots and 

 better on a waterline length of 100 feet, or thereabouts. 

 Naval architects use speed-length ratio to establish 

 the effect of length on maximum speed; this term is 

 the square root of the waterline length divided by the 

 observed maximum speed in nautical miles. Thus, 

 the privateer Prince de Neufchatel (see p. 23) was 

 observed to run at a speed of 13}^ knots, giving a 

 speed length ratio of about 1.33; the 121-foot water- 

 line schooner-yacht Sappho, at a much later date 

 (1869) is credited with 16 knots, giving a speed length 

 ratio of about 1.45; while the clipper ship James Baines 

 is credited with a claimed speed of 21 knots on a 

 waterline length of about 240 feet, giving a speed- 

 length ratio of 1.35. On this basis, there was only a 

 slight gain between the Neufchatel (built by Adam 

 and Noah Brown of New York in 1813) and the 

 clipper-ship James Baines (built by Donald McKay of 



31 



