the.com/clipper
the fastest sailing ship ever built, designed purely to outrun everyone for tea and gold.
means A clipper is a slender, fast sailing ship of the 19th century, built with sharp lines and a vast spread of sail to race cargo like tea, spices, or gold across the oceans ahead of all rivals.
from The name comes from the verb 'to clip,' which in this older sense meant to move swiftly — 'going at a good clip' still carries that ghost. That 'clip' likely traces back to an Old Norse word 'klippa,' to cut or cut short, the idea being a ship that cut through the water and clipped time off the voyage. So a clipper is, quite literally, a thing that goes fast.
- speed obsession
- clipped days off voyages, hence the name
- tea races
- ships raced from China for premium cargo prices
- cutty sark
- last surviving clipper, dry-docked in Greenwich
- killed fast
- steamships and Suez Canal ended their reign
- opium runner
- many smuggled drugs into 19th-century China
golden state warriors — nba team that won 73 games in 2015, rivalry with la clippers in same city
la clippers — nba team in los angeles, 1984-present, owned by steve ballmer since 2014
flying cloud clipper — fastest sailing ship, 1851, set records crossing atlantic and to california