Thermopylae was an extreme composite clipper ship built in 1868 by Walter Hood & Co of Aberdeen, to the design of Bernard Waymouth of London. Designed for the China tea trade, she set a speed record on her maiden voyage to Melbourne of 63 days, still the fastest trip under sail.
Taitsing was a famous British tea clipper.
Sir Lancelot was a clipper ship which sailed in the China trade and the India-Mauritius trade.
Lammermuir, named for the Lammermuir Hills, was a tea clipper designed by William Pile. She was the first clipper owned by Jock Willis Shipping Line. She was a fast sailer, being the second ship home in the 1858-59 tea season. She was a favourite of John Willis senior.
Challenger was a wooden clipper ship built in 1852 by Richard & Henry Green, in their Blackwall Yard for Hugh Hamilton Lindsay, London. She was the 291st ship built by the yard and was a remarkable departure from the previous ships produced. In 1850 the American clipper ship Oriental visited West India Docks, the largest clipper ship to visit London and the Admiralty was given permission to take her lines, and this was done by Messrs Waymouth and Cornish, both Lloyd's Surveyors, in the dry dock at Green's Yard in Blackwell. This is probably the reason that it was said that Challenger's design was inspired by and had a close resemblance to the Oriental's.
The Taeping was a tea clipper built in 1863 by Robert Steele & Company of Greenock and owned by Captain Alexander Rodger of Cellardyke, Fife. Over her career, Taeping was the first clipper to dock in London in three different tea seasons. This compares with the highly successful Fiery Cross, who won the "premium" in four separate tea seasons.
In the middle third of the 19th century, the clippers which carried cargoes of tea from China to Britain would compete in informal races to be first ship to dock in London with the new crop of each season. The Great Tea Race of 1866 was keenly followed in the press, with an extremely close finish. Taeping docked 28 minutes before Ariel - after a passage of more than 14,000 miles. Ariel had been ahead when the ships were taken in tow by steam tugs off Deal, but after waiting for the tide at Gravesend the deciding factor was the height of tide at which one could enter the different docks used by each ship. The third finisher, Serica, docked an hour and 15 minutes after Ariel. These three ships had left China on the same tide and arrived at London 99 days later to dock on the same tide. The next to arrive, 28 hours later, was Fiery Cross, followed, the next day, by Taitsing.
The Serica was a clipper built in 1863 by Robert Steele & Co., at Greenock on the south bank of the Clyde, Scotland, for James Findlay. She was the last-but-one wooden clipper built by Steele before the yard went over to building composite clippers.
Fiery Cross was a famous British tea clipper which sailed in the Great Tea Race of 1866. She was the first ship home in the tea seasons of 1861, 1862, 1863, and 1865.
Flying Spur was a British tea clipper, built of teak and greenheart in 1860.
Ambassador is a United Kingdom tea clipper built in 1869. She was a composite clipper, built with wooden planking over an iron skeleton and was W. Lund & Co's first tea clipper. She is now a beached wreck in southern Chile.
Lahloo was a British tea clipper known for winning the Tea Race of 1870, and finishing second in the Tea Race of 1871. She sailed from Fuzhou to London with over a million pounds of tea in 1868.
The SS Erl King was built at A and J Inglis, Pointhouse, Glasgow and launched in 1865 and owned by Robertson & Co London. She was designed as an Auxiliary Steam Ship - steam power would be used to supplement the propulsion from the sails, when there was no wind or if there was a light head wind. She was fitted with a propeller that could be lifted up when sailing, so as to reduce drag. The engine was not powerful enough to push the ship, with all the windage of standing rigging, directly into a strong headwind. Auxiliary steam power had the advantage of allowing this vessel to use the Suez Canal when it opened in 1869 - something which was not possible for sailing vessels.
Lord of the Isles was the first iron-hulled tea clipper, built in Greenock in 1853. She served in the tea trade until 1862, and also made voyages to Australia. She is known for a record passage between Greenock and Shanghai, and for her close finish in the 1856 Tea Race from China to England, docking in London just ten minutes before Maury. This race was the basis for the plot of a 1927 movie by Cecil B. DeMille The Yankee Clipper.
Stornoway was a British tea clipper built by Alexander Hall and Sons in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1850. She was a further development by Hall on the clippers built in Aberdeen in 1848, being larger and more obviously suited to deep sea service. She was ordered by Jardine Matheson specifically for the tea trade. In the late 1840s, tea was available earlier in the season in China, so the first ships to load had to beat to windward against the north-east monsoon to get across the China Sea. The details of the hull shape designed by Hall had this requirement in mind.
Windhover was a British tea clipper built in the closing years of construction of this sort of ship. She measured 847 tons NRT. Like the majority of the tea clippers built in the second half of the 1860s, she was of composite construction. She was built by Connell and Co, Glasgow, Scotland in 1868.
Kaisow, a composite clipper, was built by Robert Steele & Company at Greenock and launched on 19 November 1868.
James Killick was a British sea captain, shipowner and entrepreneur. He founded Killick Martin & Company with James Henry Martin.
Wylo a composite clipper was built by Robert Steele & Company, Greenock, and launched on 15 April 1869. Robert Steele & Company also built the famous clippers Ariel and Taeping who took part in the great tea race of 1866, and Sir Lancelot another renown clipper ship.
In the middle third of the 19th century, the clippers which carried cargoes of tea from China to Britain would compete in informal tea races to be first ship to dock in London with the new crop of each season. These races were also known as the races from China. The consignees of these cargoes wanted to be first in the market with this new crop, so they started to offer a "premium" to a ship that was the first to dock in London in that tea season.
United Kingdom