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October 2012 www.sname.org/sname/mt www.sname.org/sname/mt ( historical note )More an 3,000 Years Harnessing the wind goes way, way back BY PETER G. NOBLE While other engineers and technologists are just discovering ways to harness oshore wind energy, naval architects and ship designers have been doing so for centuries. ere is no evidence to suggest that the rst recorded ship, the Ark, was sail powered, but there are historical records that show the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans began using wind power more than 3 millennia ago. By the 800s A.D., the Vikings had evolved their craft into ocean crossing vessels equipped with sail and oar power. Voyages of global discovery in the middle ages, by Columbus, De Gamma, Vespucci, and Drake were all made with the aid of sail power. For deep sea voyaging, there proved to be no better sail than the square sail set on a yard across a mast sup- ported by standing rigging. e earliest sailing ships had a single mast and sail, but as ships grew in size, multiple masts each crossed by several yards evolved as the most ecient long distance sailing rig. e pinnacle of ocean wind-powered ships came in the mid to late 1800s with the design, construction, and operation of American and British clipper ships. ese vessels were developed for long-distance, high- speed, ocean transits with high-value cargoes such as opium, tea, and passengers. e clipper evolved somewhat dierently on each side of the Atlantic. e rst ships to which the term clipper seems to have been applied were the Baltimore clippers. ese were small, fast ships rigged as topsail schooners, which reached a peak of development in the early years of the 19th century. The tea clippers? were significantly larger ships designed for ocean transit, and these appeared around mid century on both sides of the Atlantic. In the U.S., a sig- nicant number of clippers were built between 1845 and the late 1860s, the last American example being Donald McKays Glory of the Seas , built in East Boston in 1869. In general, these vessels were characterized by having sharp? bow forms with hollow waterlines as opposed to the blu, apple? bows which had evolved in earlier times. In the mid 19th century, U.S. clippers typically sailed from New York and Boston to California, round Cape Horn with passengers and goods to support the gold rush and other developments on the West Coast, and then sailed onwards to China to load tea for the New York market. e British clipper trades were mostly tea from China to London and later passengers from the United Kingdom to Australia. Clipper Examples A comparison of American and British tea clippers reveals dierences between the two. e Sovereign of the Seas , which holds the sailing ship record of 22 knots (some racing yachts have now topped this, but no sailing ship), was a ne example of an American ship, built relatively early in the clipper ship era. Built in East Boston by Donald McKay, she was launched in 1852. Her principle dimensions were as follows: r % F B E X F J H I U U P O T r - F O H U I G U N r # F B N G U N r % S B G U G U N e last surviving clipper, the British Cutty Sark , has been restored and is on display in Greenwich, London. e vessel was built in 1869, almost at the end of the clipper ship era, in the same year that the Suez Canal opened. is clipper was of composite hull con- struction, with iron frames and wooden hull planking, and was built in Dumbarton on the River Clyde. r % F B E X F J H I U U P O T r - F O H U I G U N r # F B N G U N r % S B G U G U N LEFT: The Sovereign of the Seas still holds the sailing ship record of 22 knots. RIGHT: Cutty Sark was built in 1869 and was of composite hull construction.