It’s a painting I first became acquainted with outside the toilets of the nautically themed bar of the British Embassy in Seoul. At first glance, its subject appears to be the quintessential sailing ship. But a lot of other details emerge from a more meditative study of the picture. First of all, the ship is a full-rigger, carrying no fewer than six square sails on her forward and main masts. This and the curving bow mark her out as a sailing clipper. The ship behind her and those moored to the left appear to be of the same type. However, the vessel on the extreme left of the picture carries the characteristic ochre-coloured ‘batten’ sails of a Chinese junk. Therefore, this is a Chinese port and the ships must belong to that famous breed of ship; the tea clipper. The sunlight catching on the tips and undersides of the clipper’s sails would suggest early morning. This is supported by the calm waters. The lower sails of the main and mizzen masts and the uppermost sails are still in the process of being unfurled. This and the presence of the two tug boats indicate the theme is an early morning departure. The steam-powered tugs also help to date the scene to the second half of the 19th century, when steam and sail coexisted. Finally, the fact the painter chose to depict two clippers about to leave port at the same time is surely no accident; it is a reference to the legendary races that these kinds of ships entered into to be the first to deliver the season’s first crop of tea to London. The ship in the centre has a distinctive green hull. This was the typical livery of the Aberdeen White Star Line, owned by Messrs. George Thompson & Co. The company operated a number of clippers, but the most celebrated of them, and regarded as one of the finest ever built, was the Thermopylae.
Clippers occupied a relatively brief span of history. Until the Honourable East India Company lost its monopoly on Chinese trade in 1834, all goods were transported to Britain on East Indiamen; those slow and cumbersome work horses of the Imperial seas. Setting off from China in September with 1,200 tons of tea, an East Indiaman would be lucky to reach the London docks by September the following year. Once the tea trade was opened up to competitors, an informal race developed to bring the first tea to market and secure the best prices from dealers in Mincing Lane; London’s so-called ‘Street of Tea’.
It was the Americans who led the field in early clipper designs. In 1845, the clipper Rainbow delivered tea from Canton to New York in only 102 days. To begin with, this did not affect British merchants, as American ships could not land their cargoes in Britain. However, this all changed in 1849 with repeal of the British Navigation Laws. Consequently, the first tea to arrive the following year was carried by an American ship, the Oriental, only 97 days after leaving Hong Kong, much to the chagrin of British ship owners. Construction of British tea clippers centred round the shipyards of Aberdeen and Greenock. All clippers were renowned for their rakish bows, lofty sail plans, and their ‘lean and eager look’, but British clippers were generally narrower in beam than their American counterparts. This feature generally gave them an edge in speed in calmer weather but was considered a handicap in lively seas.
Anglo-American rivalry peaked in 1853 when the British clipper Challenge beat the American Challenger into the London docks by two days. Thereafter, American involvement waned and by the 1860s, tea races had become largely all-British affairs. The classic tea race was run from Foochow (modern Fuzhou) to London. The opening of this east coast port after the conclusion of the First Opium War proved more convenient for transporting tea from the interior than the more southerly port of Canton, and meant that laden clippers could depart in late May or early June. However, tea continued to be shipped from Whampoa (Canton) and as far north as Shanghai.
From these Far East ports, clippers could take one of three routes into the Indian Ocean, largely dependent on the time of year. The first and most favoured was through the South China Sea, following the coast of Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) past Singapore and through the Sunda Strait, which separates Sumatra from Java. Strong south-westerly winds sometimes made this route arduous, and in some cases ships would follow the west coast of Luzon (The Philippines), then sail down the east coast of Borneo, eventually passing into the Indian Ocean east of Bali via the Lombok Strait. If necessary, clipper captains could take an ‘Eastern Route’, avoiding the South China Sea entirely by rounding Formosa (Taiwan) and the Philippines, navigating down the Moluccas and passing through the Ombai Strait west of the island of Timor. Once in the Indian Ocean, ships would head east towards Mauritius, pass round the Cape of Good Hope, and catch the Atlantic trade winds home off the Cape Verde Islands. All routes were treacherous in terms of weather and nautical hazards such as shoals and uncharted rocks.
The most anticipated tea race took place in 1866, when five of the world’s fastest sailing ships set off within hours of each other from the Pagoda Anchorage just outside Foochow. These included the Ariel and Taeping, both Greenock-built composites, constructed with iron frames and teak planking. So tight was the race that after covering 15,000 miles in just 99 days, the two vessels were running neck a neck up the Channel. Their captains and crews were fighting for an owner’s prize of 20 shillings per ton of cargo, a reflection of the value in landing the first season’s tea, which ensured a sixpence per pound premium at market. Although Taeping managed to dock 20 minutes ahead of her rival, the prize money was eventually shared, after it was accepted that she had been unfairly advantaged in the final towing stage of the voyage by hiring the faster tug. Of course, these races were never entirely fair, with ships departing at different times and with varying weight of cargoes. It was also argued by some in the trade that the true winner should be the ship which achieved the fastest passage. It was in this regard that Thermopylae was to earn her fame.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 