Who invented a clipper ship?

Answer 1

The Baltimore Clipper was a slim, fast vessel influenced by the French luggers and privateers, developed and built in the Fells Point shipyards of Baltimore around 1790. The word "clipper" refers to speed, as in "clip along."

The Baltimore clipper was schooner rigged with two raked (slanting aft) masts carrying gaff sails and gaff topsails. These were fore-and-aft sails; this means their luffs, forward edges, ran along a single line or a spar. To go into the wind, "square" sails needed braces to hold the leading edge taut. Even a carefully braced square sail wasn't an efficient airfoil, so square-rigged ships couldn't go much further than 10° to 20° into the wind. Fore-and-aft sails trimmed more efficiently and could operate 33° or a bit more into the wind. This doesn't sound like much but it makes a vast difference in distance traveled and speed over the bottom.

In addition to the foresail and mainsail and their gaff topsails, Baltimore clippers carried several jibs and staysails forward - these were also fore-and-aft sails. Many were rigged as topsail schooners, having two square-rigged topsails available on the foremast for running before the wind, usually in the offshore trade winds.

The typical Baltimore Clipper was not large, sixty or eighty feet on deck. Her hull was deep and narrow and "sharp" - her bow cut through the water rather than pushing it aside.

Baltimore clippers had a checkered history. On one hand, they were superb blockade runners, outmaneuvering and outdistancing British men o' war which were preventing United States merchant vessels from leaving or entering harbors. They were profitable privateers during the War of 1812 (sometimes called the Second War of Independence). But they were also infamous as slavers, slave-carrying vessels on the Middle Passage of the slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean slave-holding kennels.

Answer 2

The Baltimore Clipper was made around the 1750s.

Answer 3

Clipper ships were built on shipyards in several countries.

Answer 4

Donald Mckay invented the clipper ship.