Editing Clipper (section)

{{Short description|Very fast sailing ship of the 19th century}}
{{About|the 19th century sailing ships||}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2024}}

[[File:Taeping (clipper, 1863) - SLV H91.325-1033.jpg|thumb|350px|bottom|right|''[[Taeping (clipper)|Taeping]]'', a tea clipper built in 1863]]
A '''clipper''' was a type of mid-19th-century [[Merchant ship|merchant]] [[Sailing ship|sailing vessel]], designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the [[Baltimore clipper]], which originated in the late 18th century.

Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th-century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had a large total [[sail]] area. "Clipper" does not refer to a specific [[sailplan]]; clippers may be [[schooner]]s, [[brig]]s, [[brigantine]]s, etc., as well as [[full-rigged ship]]s. Clippers were mostly constructed in British and American [[shipyard]]s, although France, Brazil, the Netherlands, and other nations also produced some. Clippers sailed all over the world, primarily on the trade routes between the United Kingdom and China, in [[transatlantic crossing|transatlantic]] trade, and on the New York-to-San Francisco route around [[Cape Horn]] during the [[California gold rush]]. Dutch clippers were built beginning in the 1850s for the tea trade and passenger service to [[Java]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Barnwell|first=R.G.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4BlJAQAAIAAJ&q=Dutch+clipper+ships&pg=PA262|title=Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries|year=1857|publisher=United States Department of State|pages=260–264}}</ref><!--This needs to be placed someplace in the body of the article as the lead is meant to summarize-->

The boom years of the clipper era began in 1843 in response to a growing demand for faster delivery of tea from China and continued with the demand for swift passage to gold fields in California and Australia beginning in 1848 and 1851, respectively. The era ended with the opening of the [[Suez Canal]] in 1869.