![]() The new teas were picked in April and May, processed in the local factories and then carried miles overland by coolies to the various waterways that ferried the chests and baskets of black and green tea down to the port. With their stunning appearance, rarity, and importance as artifacts of nautical, Western, and printing history, clipper cards are highly prized by both private collectors and institutions.PREV BACK TO MAIN NEXT History Tea History: The Age of Tea Clipper Ships Februby Jane PettigrewĪs the Europeans began trading tea with China in the early 17th century, and for the next two hundred years, all the activity of selecting the most suitable teas, haggling over the price, loading the chests on to the waiting cargo ships, and completing all the necessary paperwork went on in the port of Canton, forty miles inland on the Chinese river Zheijiang. Relatively few (perhaps 3,500) cards survive today. Most clipper cards were printed in the 1850s and 1860s, and represented the first pronounced use of color in American advertising art. These cards, slightly larger than today’s postcards, were produced by letterpress and wood engraving on coated card stock. Clipper ship sailing cardsĭepartures of clipper ships, mostly from New York and Boston to San Francisco, were advertised by clipper ship sailing cards. Declineĭecline in the use of clippers started with the economic slump following the Panic of 1857 and continued with the gradual introduction of the steamship. The ships had short-expected lifetimes and rarely outlasted two decades of use before they were broken up for salvage. The fast ships were ideally suited to low-volume, high-profit goods, such as tea, opium, spices, people, and mail.Competition among the clippers was public and fierce, with their times recorded in the newspapers. ![]() Damaged by fire on while undergoing conservation, the ship was permanently elevated three meters above the dry dock floor in 2010 as part of a plan for long-term preservation.Ĭlippers were built for seasonal trades such as tea, where an early cargo was more valuable, or for passenger routes. The last example of these still in reasonable condition was Cutty Sark, preserved in dry dock at Greenwich, United Kingdom. China clippersĪmong the most notable clippers were the China clippers, also called Tea clippers or Opium clippers, designed to ply the trade routes between Europe and the East Indies. She held this record for over 100 years, from 1854 to 1989. The Flying Cloud was a clipper ship that set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours. Baltimore clippers were topsail schooners developed in the Chesapeake Bay before the American Revolution, and which reached their zenith between 17. The first ships to which the term "clipper" seems to have been applied were the Baltimore clippers. Hornet – an American clipper ship of the 1850s Whereas clippers had very short lifespans - most were scrapped after only two decades of service, windjammers could have 50+ years' service life, and several windjammers are still today in use as school ships. Clippers were optimized for speed only and carrying highly priced cargo on small quantities, such as tea, spices or opium a windjammer is a large sailing ship optimized for cargo capacity, ease of handling and carrying low priced bulk cargo, such as grain, fertilizers or lumber. When these vessels of a new model were built, which were intended to "clip" over the waves rather than plough through them, the improved type of craft became known as "clippers" because of their speed.Ī clipper is often confused with a windjammer, but they are two completely different types of ship. While the first application of the term "clipper" in a nautical sense is by no means certain, it seems to have had an American origin when applied to the Baltimore clippers of the late 18th century. ![]() "Opium clipper" Water Witch, a British ship built in 1831
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