268 : The Atlantic 



contributions to the development of the clipper. That the lines o£ 

 the Houqua first found expression in Palmer's little carved wooden 

 model is not unusual. In fact that is the way in which shipbuilders 

 worked in those days. Up to the 1840's there were no commercial 

 marine architects other than those that may have been employed in 

 the design of naval vessels. William Webb, Isaac Webb, Bell and 

 Brown and the others who built the packets apparently served both 

 as architects and as builders. It was customary for them to work 

 from a model, the lines being taken off the model and reduced to 

 drawings after the model had been completed. Two young men 

 served their apprenticeship in different yards of the early builders 

 and are said to have been acquainted with each other even in those 

 days. One of these was John Willis Griffiths and the other Donald 

 McKay, and both were destined to achieve world-wide fame as the 

 designers of the clippers. 



John W. Griffiths, in the 1840's, was one of the first men to estab- 

 lish himself as an individual marine architect and to have a vessel 

 identified as the product of his design. The opportunity came to him 

 in 1843 when the firm of Rowland & Aspinwall departed from their 

 usual practice and ordered him to design a fast vessel to be put into 

 their China tea trade service. They did not insist that this vessel 

 should conform to the prevailing standards of marine architecture 

 as expressed in the packets; apparently it was their intention to 

 give the young designer a free hand. Griffiths produced the Rainbow, 

 which was definitely a clipper ship and one of the earliest examples 

 of this type of vessel. In fact as she began to take form some of her 

 features were so novel to the eyes of the shipping men of her time 

 that she was an object of comment even before she was launched. 

 Certain misgivings seemed also to have arisen in the minds of How- 

 land & Aspinwall for it is said that conferences between the designer 

 and the owners accounted for delay in her construction so that she 

 was not launched until 1845. Her form made it clear that Griffiths 

 won the arguments. She was 750 tons; for her day she was unusually 

 long and sharp in the bows with hollow water lines. This caused 

 one of the water-side wits to remark that she looked as though she 

 had her bows "turned inside out." The theory had been that a ship 

 that was to carry a heavy press of sail had to have full bows to pre- 

 serve her buoyancy forward and to keep her from burying her nose 

 in every wave. Griffiths reversed this theory, keeping her bows keen 

 and sharp for entry into the water under all normal sailing condi- 

 tions. He provided the additional buoyancy needed by widening and 



