Nineteenth Century Sailing Ships

They had exceedingly fine lines and were constructed as lightly as possible, so that for general cargo carrying they worked at considerable disadvantage as compared with the full-bodied vessel of greater carrying capacity. But for the cargoes paying high freights or for the carriage of passengers they showed a great superiority.

Atlantic Packet Ships.

The first striking commercial use to which they were put, apart from their contraband trade, was the Western Ocean packet service which opened with the establish ment of the Black Ball Line between New York and Liverpool in 1816. To begin with the ships were not extreme in their type, their sail area was moderate and the tonnage of most of them lay between 35o and 500 burthen. They were, however, sufficient to attract attention by the great improvement which they effected on the services that had preceded them, and their adaptation of the Baltimore clipper design was rapidly developed on more ex treme lines to cope with the mail, passenger and emigrant busi ness that was increasing by leaps and bounds. At the same time the trade to China and the East was being developed, demanding a slightly different vessel, but the American designers proved themselves quite capable of evolving it. Trade steadily improved and large fortunes were made by enterprising merchants. This Eastern trade employed some of the finest ships in the American Merchant Service just as it had in the British, but their vessels were very much faster.

Clipper Ships.

It is generally agreed, however, that the "Ann McKim" which was built at Baltimore in 1832 for Isaac McKim of that city was the first real clipper ship. She was fully rigged as a ship, square rigged on all three masts and had a tall tapering sail plan instead of the square plan that was later more greatly favoured for speed. But with her yacht-like lines, low free board and raking masts, stem and stern-posts, she completely satisfied the popular conception of a clipper ship, although her registered tonnage was only 493 on dimensions 143 feet by 31 feet beam by 14 feet depth of hold, drawing I 1 feet of water forward and 17 aft. She made a number of noteworthy passages on the China trade for which she was designed before being sold into the Pacific, but although she was fast and seaworthy she took on board a lot of water and was very uncomfortable, faults which were found with practically all clipper ships.

This policy of the American builders had an almost immediate influence on ship design in Britain. The virtues of speed were recognised, whereas formerly convoy regulations and the like had made it impossible to hope for a good passage and speed had only been considered to be at all necessary for the carriage of fruit and slaves—"perishable cargoes" as they were somewhat cynically described.

It was in the coasting trade that they first made their in fluence felt. For many years the various coasting services, par ticularly on the East coast of Great Britain, had been main tained by cutter-rigged sailing craft, the smacks for the longer distances and the hoys for the shorter routes. These smacks varied in size up to 75 feet in length by 23 in beam, their burthen going up to i6o tons and more. The hoys were generally smaller but neither craft offered any great comfort to its passengers. The coasting trade therefore gave the steamers a great oppor tunity, and they were not slow to take it. Numerous coasting services were opened in the 'twenties and the Aberdeen ship owners replied to this new competition by producing an adaptation of the American clipper, the first vessels of the type being almost invariably schooner rigged and employed on the coasting ser vice. Later they became more ambitious and rivalled the Ameri cans on the Western Ocean and eventually on the Eastern trades.

The American owners were ill-disposed to give the British this place in the rapidly growing emigrant trade on the Atlantic and improved both the size and design of their vessels in order to meet the competition. Their ships became more and more ex treme in their fine clipper lines, and by carrying sail until the last moment they made some magnificent passages which were fully advertised and appreciated at the time. In those days the emigrant had to provide his own food and very few of them had sufficient knowledge to bring on board enough for a prolonged voyage, so that fast passages were the best possible advertise ment and the fastest ships skimmed the cream of the trade.