A. B. C. Whipple (1918–2013)

I Love Ships! If you don't, skip this and continue to be blissful in your ignorance. A.B.C. Whipple, author of many fine books on sailing vessels, including several in the Time-Life series, has written a terrific book about one of the more famous clipper ship voyages. The Challenge was the name of the Flying Cloud's bitter rival in the race to be the fastest ship plying the waters. The Challenge might have broken the Flying Clouds record except for the events that make up most of this show more book.

It's hard for us to remember that clipper ships were essentially freighters, a strictly commercial response to the demands of the tea trade, in which huge premiums were rewarded to the owners and skippers of ships which brought in the first of each year's tea crop from China. When gold was discovered in California, a whole new commerce sprang up supplying all the items necessary to a mob of millionaires. Even though they had to travel 15,000 miles to San Francisco, the clippers could beat the wagon trains who only had to travel 3,000. (The record, held by the Flying Cloud, was 89 days.) The design of the clippers was a most happy congruence of efficiency, aesthetics, and economy. (As an aside, another extremely interesting book deals with the same mix of beauty, efficiency, and economy in civil engineering, specifically in the history of bridge building: [b:The Tower and the Bridge|32334|The Tower and the Bridge The New Art of Structural Engineering|David P. Billington, Jr.|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1348079360s/32334.jpg|32526] by David P. Billington --I recommend this book very highly.)

In the "race," the Flying Cloud's passage, although marred by a partial dismasting and attempts at sabotage by panicky crew members, was a record breaker. The Challenge's was a disaster, ending in a near lynching of the skipper and mate and prolonged court trials of officers and crew. Yet what happened aboard the two ships was not unique, as Whipple's careful research shows. Vile and brutal conditions for the forecastle hands were part of the price for all that speed and beauty.

The author's talent for informative digression provides some of the book's most engaging chapters. Not only can he explain the developments in ship design that gave the clippers their speed, but he is also able to bring home, in landsman/s terms some of the terrifying demands of such a vessel: for example, working on the highest yardarm was like being "perched on the windowsill of a 23 story building during an earthquake." This is a fascinating book. show less

An engaging account of the last 5-6 years of Captain Kidd's life in which he was commissioned to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean and which ended in his excution in London. Seeks to correct the historical record which for centuries identified Captain Kidd as a pirate, and follows more recent evidence that suggests he was a sacrificial lamb for political purposes.

An engaging account of the last 5-6 years of Captain Kidd's life in which he was commissioned to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean and which ended in his excution in London. Seeks to correct the historical record which for centuries identified Captain Kidd as a pirate, and follows more recent evidence that suggests he was a sacrificial lamb for political purposes.

I have always heard about clipper ships but knew nothing about them, this 1987 book is a fun way to learn more. It focuses on one infamous cruise of The Challenge but is also a history of the clipper heyday in America circa 1843-1855.

What is a clipper? It's a merchant cargo ship meant to go very fast on long ocean voyages. The cost of building a wooden ship is sometimes less than the cost of a single load of cargo, and with profit could pay off the cost of the ship in a few runs from New show more York to San Francisco. Thus how much profit could be made was determined by how many runs, which was a function of speed. So designers came up with a sleeker hull and lots and lots of sail for which clippers are best known, mountains of sail sometimes 6 layers high. They could go upwards of 15+ miles an hour flying by other ships like they nearly standing still. The first real clipper was built in 1843, and their heyday was for the next decade before they petered out by the 1870s. The period 1845-1855 was when the West began to open with the 1849 gold rush and clippers were central stars in the New York to SF run around the tip of South America.

The problem clippers had was lack of reliable crews because manning that amount of sail and maintaining speed was hard and dangerous, it attracted the most desperate characters. So while the ships were among the most beautiful and stately sailing vessels ever built, and were popular super-stars of the era, the crew and conditions were some of the worst. In the voyage described in this book, 10 crew members died from storm or brutal treatment. They were great ships, but terrible to manage. They were also not built to last, only one or two clippers from the era have survived. More than half of clippers built were lost at sea or wrecked. They were eventually replaced with Down Easter designs and then of course by steam power. show less