The Colonial Clippers

The author provides a detailed chronicle of the fast sailing clippers that served the Britain–Australia routes, dividing coverage between emigrant passenger ships and wool clippers. It combines technical descriptions, sail plans and illustrations with passage records, captains’ logs, ownership and commercial practices, notable races and 24-hour runs, and accounts of accidents, fires and final fates. Anecdotes and measured statistics illuminate everyday life aboard, steerage conditions, and changes in routing and shipbuilding, while lists of best passages and vessel biographies trace the operational history and later careers of many prominent clippers.