tea clippers
Fast sailing cargo
Tea clippers were fast sailing ships of the mid-19th century designed to transport tea from China to Britain and America.
Speed mattered because the first cargo of the season's harvest commanded premium prices.
These sleek vessels with their extensive sail plans represented the peak of commercial sailing ship design before steam power made them obsolete.
The famous Cutty Sark is a surviving example.
- tea tradeBusiness in brewed leaves
- sailShip's wind-catching fabric
- full sailEvery sail raised
- ChinaEast Asian superpower
- opiumNarcotic from scored seedpods
Cutty Sark · voyage · ocean voyage · cargo · speed · mast · rigging · hull · bow · merchant · race · captain · seamanship · canvas · tall ship · wind · Atlantic · Pacific
- Southeast AsiaVietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia
- voyagesvoyage, sea voyage, cruise, passage, crossing
- drink historybootleggers, moonshine, speakeasies, temperance movement, 18th Amendment
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