Tug captains in waterside taverns, on the look- out for the plums of the business, would carefully scan the Gazette for every report of progress, every hint of weather that would help their expert judgment to estimate the time and place of landfall. On board the racing clippers the captains, having bet the traditional new hat with their rival captains on the result, and carefully turned a blind eye to the bets made in the forecastle, would exchange signals with the ships they met for any suggestion that their competitors were ahead, and then quietly and with proper dignity make sure that the news found its way forward. Then keen- eyed Liverpool urchins would watch for the signals and race off to the owners’ office, confident of a generous reward if they brought the news before the regular service. It was efficiently done, and it was thrilling, but in human interest not to be compared with the days of the clippers. When the Bremen, Rex and Normandie created new Atlantic records, each day’s progress was sent in by wireless, and mathematically worked out to three places of decimals. Decks are sometimes awash for days at a time, and without the life- lines fitted up and down the deck - as shown in the left foreground - it would be impossible for the seamen to move from mast to mast when ordered to go aloft. Because of her low freeboard a sailing ship takes solid water over her rail in a manner unknown to most modern steamers. Yet so mighty were their deeds, and so romantic was their story, that the clipper ships have become an integral part of the sea.ĭECKS AWASH. It was an age that still attracts much attention and interest, although the era of high speed for commercial sailing ships covers a remarkably short period of time in that history. THE age of the racing clippers was one of the most romantic in the history of the sea. During this era, too, important discoveries were made in regard to the laws governing the winds and currents of the ocean and this knowledge, together with improvements in model and rig, enabled sailing ships to reduce by forty days the average time formerly required for the outward and homeward voyage from England and America to Australia."ĭuring the golden era of the clipper, the stately, frigate-built Dutch East-Indiaman, with her batteries of guns and the hammocks stowed in nettings, disappear, and her place was taken by the swift British, American, and Australian clippers, which in their turn, after a long and gallant contest, at last vanished before the advancing power of steam.A graphic account of the romantic clipper ships whose mighty deeds have added such an immortal chapter to the story of the Seven Seas Nearly all the clipper ships made records which were not equalled by the steamships of their day and more than a quarter of a century elapsed, devoted to discovery and invention in perfecting the marine engine and boiler, before the best clipper ship records for speed were broken by steam vessels. "This era witnessed the highest development of the wooden sailing ship in construction, speed, and beauty. They stand between the centuries during which man navigated the sea with sail and oar-a slave to unknown winds and currents, helpless alike in calm and in storm-and the successful introduction of steam navigation, by which man has obtained mastery upon the ocean. ![]() ![]() These memorable years form one of the most important and interesting periods of maritime history. It began to first began to wane in 1857 with the financial panic in the United States, and then began to end with screw driven steamships and the opening Suez Canal in 1869. The "golden age" for the Clipper Ship began in 1843 as a result of the growing demand for a more rapid delivery of tea to Britain and the United States from China, and with the discovery of gold in California and Australia in 18.
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