Ship Modelling

The famous painting of the Cutty Sark by Spurling

The term "clipper" originally refers to a type of hull construction, not the rigging. A clipper ship has a long, slim hull and thus "clips" or "cuts" the water, thus allowing for speed. So, the other term for these types of ships is "Fast Sailing Ships". They were merchant ships, in contrary to the frigates, of which they inherited much of their rigging.

But yet, the clippers were dependent on the wind, and so they had also the most advanced rigging of their time.

• Bowsprit: 3-5 fore triangular staysails [staysail, inner jib, jib, outer jib, flying jib], but no more sprit yards
• Fore Mast: 4-7 square sails [course, upper + lower topsail, upper + lower topgallant sail, royal sail, skysail], auxiliary stunsails on each side of each yard
• 2-4 main triangular staysails
• Main Mast: 4-8(!) square sails [course, upper + lower topsail, upper + lower topgallant sail, royal sail, skysail, moon sail ...], auxiliary stunsails on each side of each yard
• 1-4 mizzen triangular staysails
• Mizzen Mast: a quadrangular "spanker" mizzen sail, and 3-6 square sails [upper + lower topsail, upper + lower topgallant sail, royal sail, skysail], very rarely auxiliary stunsails on each side of each yard (douptful)
• NOTE: as the rigging of the ships became ever bigger, the now giant topsails were devided into upper and lower topsails, eliminating the reefing work of the topsail. Later, also the topgallant sails were devided for they were "too big" to handle.
• NOTE: sky and moon sails, the uppest yards, were not standard but used very rarely, "flying" with a minimal running rigging, just a halyard and sheets, in light weather only.

The famous Cutty Sark (Source: Wiki Commons). She is the only surviving of hundreds of clipper ships between 1840 - 1880. Without stunsails on this rare picture, she looks almost like one of the later Tall Ships.

Clippers were wooden in the first place, then of "composite" construction, of wood on an iron/steel framework, that provided for a bigger size. The most clipper ships were built in the UK and the U.S.

Sources and Books