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How Did the Construction of British Merchant

Sailing Ships Become More Efficient in the


Nineteenth Century?

By: Janelle Harrison

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Introduction

It’s safe to say that the British merchant ships of the last half of the 19th

Century underwent enormous technological and economical changes. Many of

these changes, especially those made in the design of the sailing vessel were

tied to changes in the Merchant Shipping Act and the Navigation Laws in Britain

(known as tonnages law of 1773, and the new tonnage laws of 1836 and 1854).

Other changes like the invention of the steam engine, and the use of iron or steel

hulled ships, eventually contributed to the decline in construction of the sailing

ship in Britain. This turn of events did not progress rapidly, and it took several

decades to perfect these innovations so that they could work together to create

an economically viable ship that was fast and reliable (Graham 1956, 77; Harley

1970, 262).

It was the imperfections of the Industrial Revolutions’ technology and the

rise in British world trade that contributed to the increase in the building of sailing

ships in Britain and Scotland between 1850-1875. Many of the sailing vessels

coming out of the shipyards were of a new breed- many of them designed

experimentally by each individual builder, yet striving for the same goal: to build

faster, lighter, stronger sailing ships (MacGregor 1983a, 84). This innovation in

sailing vessels leads to the building boom of a type of vessel known as a

composite ship. The composite ship did have variations in its composition, but for

the purpose of this essay when a composite constructed vessel is mentioned it

will refer to a ship constructed of iron frames overlaid with a wooden hull (unless

otherwise stated). In the early years of the 19th century composite constructed

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vessels began with only the use of iron knees or, as the first patented of iron T-

bars was used on a ship construction by William Watson of Dublin in 1839

(MacGregor 1983a, 85). When iron knees were used in this early stage, the

frames and hull were still constructed of wood which was weaker than iron. To

combat this fault in design by the1850’s iron plating was laid over the bottom

section of the ships keel and run up the stem and stern to which the iron frames

were riveted and the inner ceiling completely constructed of iron. Finally, the

wood was overlaid onto these plates, increasing the cost of the vessel as well as

its gross tonnage (MacGregor 1983a, 85). Both of these methods were discarded

for what we now call composite construction.

It is the author’s intention to examine the rise in construction of British

merchant sailing vessels in the mid-19th century through the analysis and

comparison of numerous composite constructed ships to their contemporary

counterparts. For this purpose the essay will focus on economic and

technological contributions and shortcomings of wooden, iron and steam ships

built in the 19th century (steel will not be examined). And through this brief

comparison perhaps the answer to the question “How did the construction of

British merchant sailing vessels become more efficient in the 19th century?” will

be answered.

Composite Construction

“The story of technological change in the nineteenth-century shipping

industry is essentially that of the transformation of the small wooden sailing ship

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into the large steel steamer as the ideal embodiment of naval vessels and of the

merchant carrier…” (MacGregor 1993c, 52).

Although it is ultimately true that wood gave way to iron, and sail gave way

to steam, there was a decade where multiple shipyards in Britain and Scotland in

the 1860’s found the best use of iron metal and wood to produce a sailing vessel

that would dominate in various trade routes; most notably the China tea trade.

These sailing ships were not just composite constructed vessels; many of them

were clippers. Clippers being a term used for fast sailing ships with tall and large

sail areas. Not all composite constructed vessels were clippers; in fact, some of

the earliest examples of composites were actually steam-propelled ships. But it

was during the 1860’s that ship owners ordered these fast going sailing vessels

known as clippers for trade, and composite construction was the ultimate choice

to make these ships stronger, lighter and thus, faster in the competitive world of

international trade. David MacGregor (1993c) points out that composite

construction “never formed a significant part of the merchant marine” in Britain

and according to Mitchell and Deane (as cited in MacGregor 1993c, 61) at their

peak in 1866 (composite constructed vessels) only represented 14 percent of

sailing ship production in Britain.

Yet there is a lot to be said about their design and their method of

construction. As mentioned in the introduction of this essay, the composite

constructed ship didn’t start off being built with iron frames and a wooden hull. As

early as the late 18th century shipbuilders were experimenting with building

individual parts of the ship out of iron (MacGregor 1993c). Michael Stammers

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(2001) traces the first use of individual parts of a ship made of iron to the date

circa 1744 to the French warship Invincible. By 1813 this method of construction

had been adopted by the British Royal Navy. Stammers (2001) states “The Royal

Navy adopted the practice of retrospectively fitting iron knees to vessels strained

by long periods enforcing the Blockage during the Napoleonic War. The

systematic installation of ironwork into new ships began under the auspices of Sir

Robert Seppings, the Navy’s chief surveyor from 1813 to 1832 (Stammers 2001,

115).

Fig 1: Seppings iron braced knee Fig 2: Seppings curved end iron braced knee
(Stammers 2001) (Stammers 2001)

It wasn’t until the 1850’s that composite construction was acknowledged

as an alternative method of shipbuilding as opposed to the competition that was

being built of wood or iron, at least in merchant shipbuilding. The Royal Navy and

The Merchant Navy were less inclined to build composite ships and made a swift

transition from wooden vessels to iron in the mid to late 19th Century.

It was the Excelsior, built in 1850 by John Jordan at Liverpool that is

attributed with the general credit for being the first composite constructed ship

(MacGregor 1983a; MacGregor 1993c). The schooner Excelsior was a

composite constructed vessel by definition and patent, and with this design the

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concept of a composite built vessel evolved over the next decade. The outer skin

of the Excelsior’s hull was made of wood that was butt-jointed together, over the

stringers (inside ceiling, or inner planking) that were iron plates riveted to the iron

frames as explained in the first paragraph of the introduction (McGregor 1983a;

Steffy 1994). Jordan’s patent is this best structural concept of a composite built

vessel because “all its structural members [are] iron (Stammers 2001). Little

details are given about Excelsior’s exact lines plan, but she was 683 tons and

according to Stammers (2001) the best surviving examples of Jordan’s design

concept are the City of Adelaide built 1864, and the Cutty Shark built in 1869.

Fig 3: City of Adelaide Present Day (NMM: Fig 4: Cutty Sark Present Day
http://www.nhsc.org.uk/) (www.grahamowen.com/Uk/Cutty-Sark.jpg)

The fact that these two vessels still exist, 143, and 138 years later respectively, is

testimony to the durable method of composite construction.

Leading To Composite Clippers

It was mentioned at the beginning of this essay that not all composite

constructed ships were clippers or even sailing vessels for that matter, but the

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majority of clippers built in Britain between 1850-1869 were composite

constructed for multiple reasons that shall now be enumerated. Firstly, a brief

analysis of the differences between a fully built wooden ship (such as the kind

that were being built in the United States) and the composite built clipper that

developed in Britain. Secondly, a sample comparison between iron-constructed

clippers built in Britain and composite constructed clippers will be considered.

Finally, the use of steam powered engines as a source of propulsion verses the

power of sail used on clipper ships will be examined.

Early in the 19th century Britain was finding it difficult to “procure supplies

of timber” to build wooden ships (Stammers 2001). This fact is one of the key

probable reasons for combining construction materials such as iron and wood in

shipbuilding. Through this method, a ship much stronger and lighter was

developed. This allowed for faster sailing times in comparison to wooden built

ships that were constructed without much consideration of the tonnage laws,

which will be discussed later1.

One of the major drawbacks to the combination of iron and wood

according to W. J. Rankine (1866, 180) is that the species of wood found in

Britain such as Old English Oak (Quercus Robur) or other species of oak found

in the Baltic region contains gallic acid, which contributes to the durability of the

timber but corrodes iron fastenings or any iron material it comes in direct contact

with. So now the shipbuilding industry was facing two problems: the first is a

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The British tonnage laws did not affect the vessels being built in the United States, which
maybe one of the reasons that composite constructed clippers never took hold in the U.S.
Needless to say, the flying clippers from the U.S. were fast, but it were the British composite
extreme clippers that held the records for the fastest trips back from China with tea (MacGregor
1983a; MacGregor 1988b; Course 1961; MacGregor 1893c).

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shortage of wood to build ships, and the second is that by combining iron pieces

such as fastenings or knees with most wood used in the construction of wood

ships there was a rapid rate of corrosion to the iron pieces. This is one factor that

led to the Royal Navy abandoning Seppings method of building by the 1850’s

even though Britain was sourcing out other species of strong wood that would not

have this affect.

In 1805, the Royal Navy launched the first battleship constructed

completely of teak from Bombay India. It was in India where British colonial

power tried to replenish Britain’s shortage of wood to build vessels with teak from

the forests of Burma (Lang 2003). By 1856 Britain’s superintendent of teak

forests “tried to assert state control over Burma’s teak forests” (Lang 2003), but

this still did not reduce the cost of teak being imported back to Britain where it

was most widely used in the construction of composite built vessels, namely the

clippers. Despite the expense involved in building with teak, it was recommended

as the wood of choice for composite built clippers; increasing the cost per ton

considerably to wooden built vessels manufactured of other species of softer

wood.

W.J. Macquorn Rankine (1866, 181) explains the attributes of teak wood as

follows:

Teak (tectona grandis), for its great strength, stiffness, toughness, and durability,
is the most valuable of all woods for shipbuilding. It is produced in the
mountainous districts of South-Eastern Asia and the East India Islands. The best
comes from Moulmein, Malamar, Ceylon, Johore, and Java. The best logs of
teak range from 40 to 80 feet in length, and 15 to 30 inches square; trees are to
be found of much greater size, but they are liable to be unsound at the
heart…Good teak resembles oak in colour and luster, is uniform and compact in
texture, and has very narrow and regular annual rings….Iron is not corroded by
contact with teak; unless it has been grown in a marshy soil.

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So Britain’s merchant shipbuilders now had a source of wood species that

did not corrode iron when it came in direct contact with it, unlike the problems

they encountered with oak wood. In light of this scientific discovery, the

advantages of a composite constructed ship over a wood ship can be compared:

1) There was less weight in the composite construction, which allowed them

to carry a greater dead weight on the same registered tonnage.

2) Longer ships could be built with more strength and greater speeds

achieved without increasing the ships weight.

3) It was also proved that composite ships were tighter (i.e. less water

seepage into the ship) than wooden built vessels (Course 1961).

These improvements were not just attributed to the idea of building a composite

constructed merchant vessel. Some of the explicit reasons behind the move for

innovated design and technological change were the changes in British Tonnage

Laws.

Changes in Law, Changes in Design

In 1773 what is now know as the old tonnage laws, were pasted by an Act

of Parliament and went into affect in 1774. Basil Greenhill (1980) states that

when registration of all merchant vessels became compulsory in 1786,

shipbuilders recognized that they had to abide by the tonnage laws that were in

place, and they began to build merchant vessels in a way that evaded the

purpose of the tonnage laws, namely taxation on cargoes carried by the ton.

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Also worth noting before moving on, is that the compulsory registration of

merchant vessels further increased and encouraged the Shipping and Navigation

Act of 1794 (Graham 1956; Course 1961). Because of this formula for calculating

and measuring the ships registered tonnage in 1773, so began the legacy of

deep hulled, unstable merchant vessels. The reason for this, according to

Graham (1956) is that the old tonnage laws did not use the true depth of a ships

hull, but rather, a formula that assumed the depth was half the breath of the ship.

Below is the formula:

3/5
(Length – Breadth) x Breadth x ½ Breadth = Registered tonnage
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Therefore, if a ship was built narrow and deep, its registered tonnage was

calculated on the breadth and didn’t actually take into account the ships actual

depth. The difference in actual tonnage could be as much as 30 per cent

(Moorsom 1852). Not all merchant shipowners were in favor of this method of

calculation, and by 1836 these “progressive” merchant shipowners supported the

underwriters of Lloyd’s in reconstituting the regulation, survey, and classification

of merchant ships (Graham 1956). But because the law, as stated by Parliament

was not changed in a significant manor to entice change, and many merchant

ship builders continued to use the old tonnage law for calculating tonnage and for

paying taxes on the amount of cargo they could carry.

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G. Moorsom (1852) like many of the merchant shipowners saw the

dangers in these tonnage laws and recognized that the old tonnage laws were

ineffective and he therefore produced a new method of calculation that he

proposed to Parliament. He states:

The term “tonnage” as originally applied to mercantile vessels whether intended


to express the burthen or weight that a ship is enabled safely to carry, or whether
to convey an idea of the relative sizes of vessels, as indicated by the cubical
contents of the hold or space for the stowage of cargo, is by no means
unequivocally set forth in the earlier Parliamentary documents relating to the
subject.

Two years later, in 1854, Moorsoms’ method of calculation (which is too

complicated to expand on at this time, but worth noting that is still the method

used today all over the world) was made the law by an Act of Parliament and is

now known as the new tonnage laws. Under the new tonnage laws according to

Greenhill (1980) the affects of the old tonnage laws lingered for a while. But soon

after the law was passed, the design of ships changed after years of stagnation.

And one particular ship design that evolved from the changes in the law was the

fine-lined hull of a clipper sailing ship (MacGregor 1979).

Classification Of A Composite Clipper

The meaning of what a composite constructed vessel is has already been

discussed. It is a ship, whether a sailing vessel or a steam powered ship that was

constructed of iron framing and a wooden hull usually made of teak wood. But

what makes a clipper ship a clipper? It has already been stated that a clipper had

to be fast, but what other criteria can be used to define this type of vessel?

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MacGregor (1979, 3) states that a clipper could be “of any size or rig” from fifty

tons upward, but usually did not included cutters.

MacGregor (1979; Greenhill 1980) claims that the main criterion used to

define a clipper ship was a fine-lined hull, which allowed the ship to have greater

speed. An aesthetic appeal through its streamlined appearance and most

importantly, a clipper ship required a “daring and skillful master” (MacGregor

1979). Another attribute of a clipper was that it usually carried a large sail area.

The lines of the vessel, described as fine or sharp, convey whether the ship will

be fast or not. The sharper the entrance at the load waterline, the faster the ship

is theoretically supposed to be able to go (MacGregor 1979). The terminology

here meaning that the fore section of the ship is referred to as the entrance, and

the aft part of the hull the run, and usually these two ends meet amid ship (where

the hull supposedly was at its widest, but on a clipper that was not always the

case) (MacGregor 1979).

MacGregor (1979) lists three classes of clippers; regardless of their

construction material they were either extreme clippers, medium clippers, or

clipper. The extreme clipper possessed a very fine-lined hull and was expected

to make a passage with a load of cargo in an unusually short period of time (i.e. a

very fast passage). One way used to compare these three classes of clippers is

to use the under-deck coefficient, which is used to represent the under-deck

tonnage for displacement of a vessel. MacGregor (1983a) purports that a fine-

lined ship will usually have a coefficient ratio under 0.60. The table on the next

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page lists eight composite built clippers and their detail; all but two have their under-deck coefficients listed,

but they are listed because The City of Adelaide is one of the oldest surviving composite built clippers, and The Sobraon

was the largest built composite ship. It’s worth noting here, that before the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, the under-deck

tonnage could not be calculated (MacGregor 1979).

Date Ship Name Type Dimensions (in feet) Coefficient** Builder Tons

1863 Taeping Extreme clipper 183.7 x 31.1 x 19.9 0.63 R. Steele & Co 767 NRT

1864 City of Adelaide Medium clipper 176.6 x 33.25 x 18.5 N/A W. Pile, Hay & Co 791 NRT

1865 Areil Extreme clipper 197.4 x 33.9 x 21.0 0.6 R. Steele & Co 853 NRT

1866 Sobraon Auxiliary steamer (orig) 272.0 x 40.0 x 27.0 N/A Alexander Hall & Sons 2,131 NT

1866 Titania Extreme clipper 200.0 x 36.0 x 21.0 0.58 R. Steele & Co 879.45 NRT

1868 Thermoplae Extreme clipper 212.0 x 36.0 x 20.9 0.58 Bernard Waymouth 948 NRT

1869 Cutty Sark Extreme clipper 212.5 x 36.0 x 21.0 0.55 Scott & Linton 921 NT

1869 The Caliph Extreme clipper 215.05 x 36.1 x 20.4 0.56 Alexander Hall & Sons 914 NRT

**Under Deck Coefficient


Table 1: (MacGregor 1983a, Appendix XII;
Course 1961, Appendix I)

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The table on the previous page represents some of the finest built clippers for the

China tea trade, passenger and goods cargo trade for the Australian gold rush

camps and the Australian wool trade. Only one of the above listed composite

constructed clippers had been classified as a medium clipper, and she was

known as the City of Adelaide. Using her as the representative composite

constructed clipper she will be compared to several of her contemporary

competitors in the attempt to achieve efficiency during the 19th Century.

City Of Adelaide: Comparative Analysis

Fig 7: City of Adelaide (State Library of Victoria. Brodie


Collection, La Trobe Picture Collection)

Before the City of Adelaide2 was built and launched by W. Pile in 1864,

the first iron ship had already entered into the tea trade between China and

Britain in 1849 (MacGregor). In fact iron was becoming widely used and so was

steam but both had major drawbacks until the late 19th Century. The most

2
The City of Adelaide was William Piles first composite constructed vessel. He had already been building
wooden ships at the family yard in Sunderland with his brother John since 1845, but in 1848 he took over
part of the business, building on his own account. In 1853 John Pile left the business and William took full
ownership until his death (Smith, J. and T.S. Holden 1947).

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significant drawback for the use of iron was that the ships hull below the water

line became fouled quite quickly. This fouling slowed vessels down considerably

and in specialized trades such as the China tea trade or the transport of

passengers and cargo over long distances, time was money. The invention of an

effective anti-fouling chemical was still lacking in 1867 when Charles Young

authored his book on fouling and corrosion. Young (1867) purports that “fouling

involves an enormous loss of money and time.” He goes on to list them in order

of cost as:

1. Docking and undocking


2. Cost of coating materials
3. Wear and tear of ship’s bottom when scraped or cleaned
4. Wages of unemployed crew
5. Loss by reduced speed

As an example of this cost Young (1867) purports that the Peninsular and

Oriental Steamship Company were expending upwards of £70,000 a year trying

to keep their iron hulled ship bottoms clean. And MacGregor (1979) also purports

that during this period “the great drawback to iron hulls was the lack of success in

checking the growth of weed and barnacles below the water. Peacock &

Buchan’s pink-coloured anti-fouling paint, introduced in 1848, gave the best

results.” The cost per ship of 900 tons to have this service provided was

approximately £70 (MacGregor 1979, 38). This usually had to be done twice a

year if the vessel was to be efficient in speed at all.

It is evident that the benefits of iron hulled ships, which were lighter in

gross tonnage and capable of carrying more cargo at the same or even less

registered tonnage rating than a composite built vessel were not great enough to

make the transition to iron in all merchant shipping. And the iron ship was

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certainly much lighter than a fully wooden constructed vessel with a larger cargo

hold at less registered tonnage, but the fouling played a major factor in the

merchant shipowners choice for trade during the 1860’s and the major

drawbacks overshadowed the benefits, at least until the 1870’s. Wood of course

was not immune to fouling, and so the composite constructed vessel also faced

this problem. In fact, ships sailing through Mediterranean waters also faced the

threat of worms boring into the hull (Young 1867). This had been combated for

several hundred years with a metal sheathing, either of copper or zinc3. A

composite constructed ship could be sheathed and thus avoid the redundant cost

listed above that iron shipowners incurred twice a year.

Having pointed out several of the major disadvantages to iron built ships in

comparison to composite constructed vessels, it is important to realize that this

had a ripple after affect on the use of the steam engine as a means of power for

propulsion by either paddle wheels or the screw propeller. The steam engine,

patented by Watt in the late 18th Century, was one of the key inventions that

brought about the Industrial Revolution and coincided with the use of iron

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt). In 1821, the Aaron Manby, a small iron

steamboat was running in the Surrey Canal4 (Young 1867, 26). Steam power

was being utilized, but the major drawbacks for such use were:

3
Zinc as a material for sheathing was patented in 1805, but was not well employed until 1848.
4
The use of iron in fresh water was less inclined to the same fouling problems that sea going
vessel encountered. There also wasn’t and urgency in speed and the cargoes were not being
transported long distances.

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1. Steam engines caused a lot of vibration on a wooden ship and this

compromised the structural integrity of the vessel, so steam power

worked best with iron hulled ships, which the drawbacks of this

material has already been discussed.

2. Before the wide spread use of the screw propeller, the paddle wheel

was powered by the steam engine. Paddle wheels were inefficient and

slow on the open rough sea, and difficult to maneuver.

3. The steam engine did not produce a lot of power until triple expansion

was introduced in 1881 (Morriss 2007, Lecture). In the 1860’s the

steam engine pressure was only 60 1b/sq inch (and increased to 125

in 1881).

4. Inefficient engines required a lot of coal for power. This took up much

of the cargo hold space. Coal was also expensive increasing the cost

considerably on long distance trade routes. Ships also had to make

multiple stops to replenish the coal supply, paying a hirer price at these

coal stations, and wasting valuable time (Harley 1970).

Fig 7: Engraving by R. Ackermann published in 1817 (Gardiner 1993)

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It should be apparent now why ships such as the City of Adelaide were in

such high demand during the mid –19th Century. She was a ship that reaped the

benefit of having a wooden hull manufactured out of the strongest wood available

and could be sheathed with copper or zinc metal to prevent the fouling that iron

ships encountered on their sea going voyages. But she also had the structural

integrity of an iron built vessel because her frames were made of iron. Her tall

masts and large sail area gave her the speed that was necessary to be

competitive in the Britain to Australia passenger and cargo journeys of the 1860’s

and 70’s, which she was employed in for 23 years until 1887

(http://www.sunderlandmaritimeheritage.org.uk/adelaide.htm).

Fig 8: Newspaper clipping, 1887 (Flinders Ranges Research,


http://www.southaustralianhistory.com.au/cityofadelaide.htm)

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Fig 9: Photograph taken by J. Harrison (TNA: BT99/778)

Even though the City of Adelaide wasn’t considered an extreme clipper,

she held the record (tied with the Yatala) for the fasts journey time from London

to Adelaide in 65 days set in 1867. This record was not broken until 1880 by the

iron-constructed clipper the Torrens, which sailed from Plymouth to Adelaide in

65 days, though the distance is shorter it was concluded that the record was

broken. The Torrens never achieved a journey that fast again in her entire

career, after which time she was sold and broken up in 1903 (Bruzelius 1997).

Below is a photograph of the Torrens, full sail.

Fig 10: Torrens in the Doldrums, 1892 (Smith, J.W. and T.S. Holden 1947)
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Final Conclusion

Merchant sailing shipping changed dramatically during the 19th Century.

Sailing ships faced the competition of the steam-powered vessel, but with

changes in construction design and materials on various parts of the ship they

were able to stay competitive in many of the specialized trades that sprouted up

in the mid-19th Century. Many of these part modifications were influenced by

industry, such as lighter wire rigging instead of heavy burdensome rope.

Stronger, hollow iron masts, and iron frames were used on composite built ships.

With these technological changes the sailing ship became more efficient and was

able to compete with the Industrial Revolutions other major inventions up until the

end of the 19th Century.

One of the finest and most efficient developments to take place and then

fade into history was the design and development of the extreme composite

clipper. This fine-lined vessel represents a period in history that proves

sometimes modern inventions like the steam engine wasn’t always the best or

most efficient method of use until it was in fact redesigned and improved. It took

hundreds of years for the sailing ship to develop into its finest form; one would

expect the same from new inventions on some level. The early steam powered

ship is testament to that. The theory then, in summation, is that inventions can

continuously be modified until they eventually reach their peak in efficiency only

to be replaced by another, new unrefined invention which at its beginnings may

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not be at its most efficient. But there are still those that do not give recognition

where recognition is due. Greenhill (1980, 5) purports that “at all times the very

fast sailing vessel represented only a small part of the total of contemporary

merchant shipping activity and had relatively little influence on the industry as a

whole.”

What Greenhill fails to realize is that this small percentage of merchant

shipping represents an era in British and world history, filled with stories that

strike the human imagination and that take the maritime historian or

archaeologist back to a time and place that could only be understand through the

study of these fast, competitive vessels. To understand the demand for speed on

the China tea trade or the Australian trade route is to understand the meaning of

the composite constructed clipper. The composite clippers may have “reached

their peak in efficiency and capability by the time they had already become

obsolete” (Greenhill 1980, 6) but that does not make their worth any less

significant in maritime archaeology or maritime history.

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MacGregor, D.R. (1979) Clipper Ships (Watford: Argus Books)

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05.03.07 < http://www.grahamowen.com/Uk/Cutty-Sark.jpg>

Shipbuilding on the Wear: Part 2. City Library and Arts Centre (Sunderland City
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< http://www.sunderland.gov.uk/libraries/Leaflets/Shipbuilding%202.pdf>

Smith, J.W. and T.S. Holden (1947) Where Ships are Born: Sunderland 1346-
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Stammers, M.K. (2001) Iron knees in wooden vessels— an attempt at a typology,


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10.02.07 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunderland#Traditional_industry>

Watt Steam Engine. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Wikipedia online)


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