est recorded speed in surviving ship's logs, the saihng 

 speed of old trading vessels, packets, Baltimore-clipper 

 model schooners and brigs, clipper ships, and the last 

 sailing freighters of the United States, the down- 

 Easters, to show that the design of sailing ships im- 

 proved steadily during the whole 19th century in 

 North America. As has been suggested (p. 32), the 

 increase in size, or at least in average size, makes such 

 comparisons very misleading; in addition, the question 

 of the conditions of weather and wind under which 

 each passage was made, is not considered. In the 

 packets, for example, the run from New York to Liver- 

 pool was commonly made under very favorable con- 

 ditions with fresh to strong winds abaft the beam; 

 hence conditions on this course are extremely favor- 

 able to a ship that could carry a press of sail and main- 

 tain a good average speed. On the other hand, the 

 return run to the westward was commonly unfavor- 

 able, for head winds could normally be expected; the 

 packet usually had to claw her way to windward at 

 least part way, if not for the whole distance. Thus a 

 weatherly and powerful vessel might make a relatively 

 good passage westward simply because she could sail 

 well close-hauled, though her maximum potential 

 speed might be relatively low. Such conditions, how- 

 ever, would not necessarily favor a powerful ship in all 

 instances, for rig might be a factor. In one case a 

 pilot-boat schooner left New York for Cork, Ireland, 

 at the same time a packet ship sailed from New York 

 for Liverpool. The schooner made the run to Cork 

 under severe winter weather conditions in 26 days; 

 the packet made the Irish coast in 28 days. The ad- 

 vantage of the schooner lay in the easterly winds then 

 faced by both vessels. On the westward run, which 

 packet ships were making in 34 days or more, the 

 schooner came home in 29 days over the longer 

 southern route, for on this run also the schooner rig 

 had the advantage because of the amount of wind- 

 ward sailing required by the prevailing westerlies. 



On the long runs to China or California and return 

 to New York or Boston, the average weather encoun- 

 tered played a greater part in determining the length 

 of the passage than the design of the hull of a ship. 

 Since each individual ship had one point of sailing in 

 which she could do her inaximum potential speed, her 

 length of passage would often depend upon how much 

 of the time she was in weather conditions that suited 

 this ability. Analysis of clipper-ship passages show 

 numerous cases in which very fast ships, judging by 

 plans, builder's half-models, and previous records, 

 were beaten by potentially slower ships on the long 



runs simply because the slower shi[) had weather con- 

 ditions that suited her most for much longer periods 

 than had the faster ship. 



Another factor that bedevils the marine historian 

 discussing clipper ships is the fashion that developed 

 in the 1850's, in the United States and particularly 

 at Boston and New York, of calling nearly every new 

 and large ship a clipper ship. Since the fashion in 

 design then called for any ship, full or fine ended, to 

 carry a large spread of sail and since the length-of- 

 passage criterion was most commonly used, it is not 

 surprising to find that the "clipper ships" of the con- 

 temporary journalists were a mb<ed lot insofar as form 

 of hull was concerned. 



Out of 433 ships listed by Carl C. Cutler in his classic 

 account of the clipper ships. Greyhounds of the Sea, and 

 by other clipper-ship historians, the plans or builders' 

 models of 72 have been examined; of these not more 

 than a total of 44 can be considered sharp enough to 

 have a very high potential speed for their length and 

 only 35 could be properly called clippers or extreme 

 clippers. At least 22 of the ships represented were 

 relatively full-ended medium clippers and the rest are 

 by any criterion full-ended ships. It is hardly sound 

 to make any sweeping generalization of the actual 

 number of extreme clippers that were built, with only 

 about 16 percent of the so-called clippers capable of 

 being judged on the basis of their hull form, but one 

 may conclude that ships of very high potential speed 

 were much less numerous among the so-called clipper 

 ships of the 1850's than is indicated by the various 

 listings. Cutler, in particular, makes this point clear 

 in his introductory note. 



In truth, the clipper ships introduced no one feature 

 that was entirely new, and the first \'essels in this cate- 

 gory built for the China trade were really sharp-ended 

 packets like the Rainbow, Helena, Montauk, and others. 

 These were followed by more extreme ships, such as 

 the Samuel Russell, Oriental, and Sea Witch; the latter 

 may be said to have been the first really extreme ship 

 of the new clipper-ship class. In general, then, al- 

 though the early China clippers had a good deal of 

 rise in the floors amidships, compared to that in the 

 last class of North Atlantic packets, their model in 

 most other respects was nearly that of a good packet. 



Nor was the model of the fast packet then In use a 

 recent design, for development of the fast carrier 

 represented in the early China traders had begun at 

 least as early as 1812, and even then the Baltimore 

 builders were producing a medium carrier, having 

 fairly easy lines, suitable for fast-sailing. A plan of 



33 



