Clipper Ships
The Clipper & the Golden Age of Sail
Clipper ships were massive square rigged sailing vessels, designed for extreme speed. They served a variety of purposes, but the most famous of them all were the legendary tea clippers. There was a high demand for tea in Britain, and so the clippers were sent out. Past Gibraltar, down Africa, through the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean, up to China, and all the way back, they would carry the prized tea back home to Britain. It was the golden age of sail, and steamships were not yet trusted enough to be considered a viable means of transport. Besides, clippers were faster. Their global escapades facilitated trade with Asia, and helped pave the way for the interconnected world we know today.
The Great Tea Races
Tea is packs punch. Both in flavor, and market value. Britain and the rest of Europe craved the drink, and so it was often the case that they would pay exorbitant premiums to get the first tea to arrive in London. This sparked a competition each year to be the first clipper back to London, and the Tea Race was born. Certain clippers would make a name for themselves; the Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, Taeping, and Ariel, just to name a few. This event was soon formalized, as the first ship back in London would have a premium written into their bill of lading.
The competition became s popular that newspapers back in Britain began to follow their progress, and the attention would culminate in the Great Tea Race of 1866. The clipper Taeping docked in London 28 minutes before Ariel, followed by Serica 15 minutes later. 28 hours later, Fiery Cross would arrive, followed the next day by the clipper Taitsing. This legendary race gained much attention, and with the margins being so close by which Taeping won, the victory was sensation in London.
The Tea race was an extraordinary event that connected Asia and Europe. Another famous race, the Great Tea Race of 1872 was a competition between the Cutty Sark and Thermopylae, but by this point it was clear that the Clipper's days were numbered. Sail was being left behind, and soon the legendary tea clipper would be out of a job.
The Opening of the Suez Canal, 1869
Just 3 years after the race of 1866, the biggest blow to tea clippers happened. The Suez canal was completed, and that cut thousands of miles off of the journey for steamships. The winds in the Suez were not suited for clippers, and so they had to continue sailing through the Cape of Good Hope as business was slowly being siphoned off. Worse still, the steamships had proven themselves, and could now sail the routes the clippers took even faster than they could. The tea races became pointless, as the clippers struggled to maintain their reputation as the way to get tea from China, but the battle was already won.
In 1870, SS Oceanic was launched by the White Star Line, and the ocean liner was born. Ocean liners could carry both passengers and large amounts of fright, all wile cutting the trip length in half. Clippers were fazed out of shipping companies and replaced by steamships. And so, by the late 1800s, clippers began to disappear. The last clippers were destroyed or sidelined in the early 1900s. By the '30s, every single last clipper was gone.
Legacy
The Cutty Sark would come out on top as the most famous clipper today. She was built the same year that the Suez Canal opened, and thus spent only a few years on the tea trade. Known as the fastest tea clipper to date, she continued service in some form or another until she was saved from the scrapyard in 1953 by the Cutty Sark Preservation Society. Now a museum ship in dry dock at Greenwich, She remains the only original clipper ship left in existence.
Although clippers will never again sail, they left their mark on the world. The clipper was a symbol of globalization, and how year by year the world shrunk as distances were crossed ever more efficiently. Succeeded by the steamships, they paved the way for the cargo vessels and ocean liners of the 20th century to transport people and cargo around the world, crossing vast oceans to deliver their contents abroad. Today they lie scattered across the globe, wrecked and dismantled, but their legendary exploits and achievements will never be forgotten
