The Flying Cloud - Clipper Ship
by Ed Vebell
Title
The Flying Cloud - Clipper Ship
Artist
Ed Vebell
Medium
Painting - Acrylic On Hot Press Illustration Board
Description
The clipper ship had a short but glorious life, from the mid-1840s to the 1860s, when steamboats and railroads took over. The greatest of ship designers and builders was Donald McKay, who in 1850 launched the Stag Hound, the first of many clipper ships he built. In 1851 he built what was called the noblest and most beautiful ship ever built: the Flying Cloud -- 229 feet in length, forty in breadth, and with her sky-sail rising 200 feet from the deck. She was not only a thing of beauty, she was also the fastest ship afloat. On her maiden voyage she logged 374 nautical miles the first day out; she rounded Cape Horn and made San Francisco in eighty-nine days, a record never surpassed by a sailboat. The Flying Cloud, whose birth coincided with the discovery of gold in California, played a role in the history of that state. It was faster -- and safer -- to sail around Cape Horn than to go overland from the Mississippi. The Flying Cloud wrote a chapter, too, in the history of maritime Massachusetts, for it continued the famous China Trade inaugurated by Captain Gray in 1782, and brought both wealth and the Chinese culture to that most cosmopolitan of American cities, Boston.
Please note the "Fine Art America" watermark will not appear on the painting or any print reproduction.
Artwork Copyright © 1980 Wind River Studios Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved under United States and international copyright laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, transmit, or otherwise exploit the Artwork in any way. Any sale of the physical original does not include or convey the Copyright or any right comprised in the Copyright. WRSH Stock Number XB06178
Uploaded
April 11th, 2022
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