Clippers: The Ships That Shaped the World

Designer John Willis Griffiths’s conclusion that a sailing ship built for speed required ‘a sharp flared hollow and concave bow’ and a stern designed for ‘minimal drag’, revolutionized shipping well into the 20th century. This erudite history of the clipper, the fastest of all merchant sailing ships, considers different designs, including Yankee, Australian and tea clippers, as well as their cargoes and trade routes, with a focus on the treacherous seas around Cape Horn.