Bulletin - United States National Museum (1960) (19886658163)

Title: Bulletin - United States National Museum
Identifier: bulletinunitedst2191960unit (find matches)
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: United States National Museum; Smithsonian Institution; United States. Dept. of the Interior
Subjects: Science
Publisher: Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, (etc. ); for sale by the Supt. of Docs. , U. S. Govt Print. Off.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries



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Clipper Ship' Ocean Herald, from a French print in the Watercraft Collection (USNM 159928). She was built at Damariscotta, Maine, in 1853, and was sold to France in 1856 and renamed Malabar. Said to be a medium-clipper model, her register tonnage was 1658. (Smithsonian photo 44628-c.) in their employ. Historians of the clipper ship have at times considered this as the vessel marking the beginning of the clipper-ship period, although the first ship-rigged clipper in the China trade was probably the Ann McKim. What is a clipper ship? Much space has been given to this question by maritime writers and historians both in the United States and Britain. There are many answers, the fundamental one being that a clipper ship is one that can be sailed at a very high rate of speed. This definition is inherent in the word "clipper," which to Americans of the 19th century meant fast moving. To the naval architect or master shipwright the clipper had to have a hull capable of high speed and a rig to match. In the technical sense, then, a clipper was a very sharp-ended vessel having a hull form that possessed a high potential speed and that could carry a spread of sail sufficient to drive the vessel at this high potential speed, at least on occasion. A high potential speed depends on size, particularly length, in ships of sufficient displacement to carry a payload of cargo. Therefore, the numerical expression of high potential speed must vary. For example, the Baltimore clippers of the privateer type are recorded as having sailed at a speed of 13 knots and better on a waterline length of 100 feet, or thereabouts. Naval architects use speed-length ratio to establish the effect of length on maximum speed; this term is the square root of the waterline length divided by the observed maximum speed in nautical miles. Thus, the privateer Prince de Neufchatel (see p. 23) was observed to run at a speed of 13)^ knots, giving a speed length ratio of about 1.33; the 121-foot water- line schooner-yacht Sappho, at a much later date (1869) is credited with 16 knots, giving a speed length ratio of about 1.45; while the clipper ship James Baines is credited with a claimed speed of 21 knots on a waterline length of about 240 feet, giving a speed- length ratio of 1.35. On this basis, there was only a slight gain between the Neufchatel (built by Adam and Noah Brown of New York in 1813) and the clipper-ship James Baines (built by Donald McKay of 31