Baltimore Clipper is the colloquial name for fast sailing ship

Sailing ship

The term sailing ship is now used to refer to any large wind-powered vessel. In technical terms, a ship was a sailing vessel with a specific rig of at least three masts, square rigged on all of them, making the sailing adjective redundant. In popular usage "ship" became associated with all large...

s built on the south-eastern seaboard of the United States of America, especially at the port of Baltimore

Baltimore

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...

, Maryland

Maryland

Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

. It is most commonly applied to two-masted schooners and brigantine

Brigantine

In sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...

s.

Baltimore clippers were first built as small, fast sailing vessels for trade around the coastlines of the United States and the Caribbean Islands. Their hull-lines tended to be very sharp, with a "V"-shaped cross-section below the waterline and strongly raked stem, stern posts, and masts. The origins of the type are unknown but certainly hulls conforming to the concept were being built in Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 and Bermuda

Bermuda

Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...

 (the hull of the Bermuda sloop

Bermuda sloop

The Bermuda sloop is a type of fore-and-aft rigged sailing vessel developed on the islands of Bermuda in the 17th century. In its purest form, it is single-masted, although ships with such rigging were built with as many as three masts, which are then referred to as schooners...

, designed for the open ocean, was broader than the Jamaican and deeper than the American) by the late 17th century and by the late 18th century were popular both in Britain

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 and the United States.

They were especially suited to moving low-density, high value perishable cargoes such as slaves, and in that trade operated as far afield as the west coast of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. Similar vessels were built as privateers during the War of Independence

American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

 and the War of 1812

War of 1812

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

, and as pilot boat

Pilot boat

A Pilot Boat is a type of boat used to transport pilots between land and the inbound or outbound ships that they are piloting.-History:The origins of the word pilot probably disseminates from the Latin word pilota, a variation of pedota, the plural of pēdón which translates as oar...

s. The famous yacht America

America (yacht)

The America was a 19th century racing yacht that was the first to win the eponymous international sailing trophy now known as the America's Cup; in 1851 the trophy was known as the Royal Yacht Squadron's "One Hundred Guinea Cup", but was later renamed after the original winning yacht...

, derived from the lines of a New York pilot boat, was conceptually not far removed the Baltimore clipper. Many such vessels went to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 during the Australian gold rush, or after being seized as slavers and sold.

One particularly famous Baltimore Clipper, and one of the last of the type in commercial service, was the schooner Vigilant that traded around the Danish Caribbean

Danish West Indies

The Danish West Indies or "Danish Antilles", were a colony of Denmark-Norway and later Denmark in the Caribbean. They were sold to the United States in 1916 in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies and became the United States Virgin Islands in 1917...

 islands for over a century before sinking in a hurricane on September 12, 1928. She was believed to have been built in the 1790s.

A modern replica of an early 19th century Baltimore Clipper was the ill-fated Pride of Baltimore

Pride of Baltimore

The Pride of Baltimore was an authentic reproduction of a 19th-century Baltimore clipper topsail schooner commissioned by citizens of Baltimore, Maryland. It was lost at sea with four of its twelve crew on May 14, 1986...

and her replacement Pride of Baltimore II.

External links

• Rootsweb: Excerpt of Tidewater Triumph, by Geoffrey Footner. Describing development of the Baltimore Clipper (large chapter on Bermuda sloops and role of Bermudian boatbuilders).