Medium clipper

A Medium clipper is a type of clipper designed for both cargo carrying capacity and speed. An evolutionary adaptation of the extreme clipper, the medium clipper had been invented by 1851, when the hull type appeared in U.S. shipyards. Medium clippers continued to be built until 1869, when the Glory of the Seas, one of the last known medium clipper ships to be built, was launched by the firm of Donald McKay & Co.

Innovation

The 1850s saw two major gold rushes in the English-speaking world - in Australia and Nevada - as well as continued development of placer gold mining in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

As these precious metal mining activities matured, the working populations of the affected gold and silver mining belts began to demand large quantities of manufactured goods. Shippers began to look for a ship design that would speed large quantities of boxed, barrelled, or crated cargo to Melbourne or San Francisco.

At the beginning of the 1850s, the dominant U.S. fast sailing ship design was the extreme clipper, properly defined as a cargo vessel with a 40-inch-or-more dead rise at half floor. This refers to a sail-powered cargo hull with a relatively flat-floored rear half, tapering as one moves forward along the hull to a relatively sharp forward half.