Flying Cloud was a clipper ship that set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco, 89 days 8 hours. The ship held this record for over 130 years, from 1854 to 1989.
When launched in 1853, Great Republic was the largest wooden ship in the world. She shared this title with another American-built ship, the steamship Adriatic. She was also the largest full-rigged ship ever built in the United States. She was built by Donald McKay for trade on his own account to Australia.
USS Nightingale (1851) was originally the tea clipper and slave ship Nightingale, launched in 1851. USS Saratoga captured her off Africa in 1861; the United States Navy then purchased her.
Rainbow, launched in New York in 1845 to sail in the China trade for the firm Howland & Aspinwall, was a clipper, a type of sailing vessel designed to sacrifice cargo capacity for speed.
Surprise was a California clipper built in East Boston in 1850. It initially rounded Cape Horn to California, but the vessel's owners, A. A. Low & Brother, soon found that the vessel performed well in Far Eastern waters. From that point onward the vessel spent much of her working life in the China trade, although the vessel also made three trips from the East Coast of the United States to California.
Challenger was an extreme clipper ship built in East Boston in 1853. She sailed in the San Francisco trade, and later in the guano trade in Peru.
Witchcraft was a clipper built in 1850 for the California and China trade. She made record passages from Rio de Janeiro to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to Callao, Peru.
Sea Serpent was an 1850 extreme clipper that sailed in the San Francisco trade, the China trade, and the transatlantic lumber trade. She was one of the longest lived clippers, with a service life of 36 years and 5 months.
Golden West was an 1852 extreme clipper built by Paul Curtis. The ship had a very active career in the California trade, the guano trade, the coolie trade, the Far East, and Australia. She made a record passage between Japan and San Francisco in 1856.
Comet was an 1851 California clipper built by William H. Webb which sailed in the Australia trade and the tea trade. This extreme clipper was very fast. She had record passages on two different routes: New York City to San Francisco, and Liverpool to Hong Kong, and beat the famous clipper Flying Dutchman in an 1853 race around the Horn to San Francisco.
The schooner Anglona was the first American opium clipper. She sailed in the Chinese coastal trade in the 1840s, and had a famous race with the schooner Ariel around Lintin Island.
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.
Eleanor Creesy was an American navigator, who was the wife of Josiah Perkins Creesy, skipper of the Flying Cloud which set the world's sailing record for the fastest passage between New York and San Francisco in 1851. They beat their own record three years later, and it remained a record until 1989.
Golden State was an extreme clipper ship built by Jacob Aaron Westervelt in 1852 in New York City and launched on January 10, 1853. In 1883 she was renamed Anne C. Maguire.
Ann McKim was one of the first true clipper ships. The opening of new Treaty ports in the East in the early 1840s eased an access of the US merchants to China, which demanded the ships that could move cargo faster than then-traditional slow-moving, high-capacity merchant ships. The Ann McKim was one of the ships that had answered the demand in the early years and sailed between New York and China in 1840–1842, until newer and faster cargo-carriers, such as the nearly 600-ton clipper Houqua, the 598-ton China packet Helena, Witch of theWave, and Rainbow, with the last two built expressly to outperform the Ann McKim started dominating the shipping world of the US-China trade and the Ann McKim was shifted back to the South American trade routes.
Helena was a China packet built by William H. Webb in 1841. Helena is often called a "pre-clipper" or "early clipper ship", type of the fast ships that were a precursor to the fast clippers that dominated the China trade routes for years to follow.
Kaisow, a composite clipper, was built by Robert Steele & Company at Greenock and launched on 19 November 1868.
Isaac C. Smith was an American sail and steamboat captain, shipbuilder, sparmaker and entrepreneur.
Hurricane was a large extreme clipper of 1608 tons burthen built in Hoboken, New Jersey, United States in 1851. Reputedly the most extreme clipper ever built, Hurricane proved a very fast vessel, reportedly capable of speeds of up to 18 knots (33 km/h) in ideal conditions, and establishing a number of record passages in the early years of her career.
Tejuca was a small 470-ton clipper ship built in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1854. After only eighteen months of service, she was lost in a hurricane on the North Atlantic, with most of her crew rescued through a daring maneuver carried out by the ship Excelsior.
