Once the extent and nature of the world’s oceans was established, the final stage of the era of sail had been reached. American independence played a major role determining how the final stage developed.

To understand why this was so, it should be appreciated that Britain’s North American colonies were vital to its merchant marine, for they formed a major part of its trading empire as customers for British goods. Under mercantilist economic doctrine, colonies were intended as a source of raw materials and as a market for manufactured goods produced in the metropolitan country. Maine, New Hampshire, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were rich in naval stores and timber for inexpensive hulls, masts, and spars. And the Navigation Act as amended also granted to the merchant fleets in British North America a monopoly on the transport of goods and passengers within the British Empire. When the United States became independent in 1783 the former colonies were rigidly denied access to the British metropolitan and colonial markets. The substantial trade that had tied Boston to Newfoundland and the British West Indies was severed, leaving the Americans to find an alternative trading system as quickly as possible. New England and the Middle Atlantic states, where there were significant fleets of sailing ships, turned to the Atlantic and Mediterranean islands as well as to Mauritius and to China. In this way, the merchants in the American ports created direct competition to the British East India Company. In doing so, they needed ships that could sail in the Far Eastern trade without the protection of the British navy and that could operate more efficiently and economically than those of the East India Company.

The British East Indiamen were extravagantly expensive to build. Contracts for their construction were awarded by custom and graft. Captains were appointed by patronage rather than education or professional qualifications. And the journeys to Canton (Guangzhon), China, from England in East Indiamen were slow in a trade where fast passages were of value, for example, in guarding the quality of the tea being carried. American merchants were fully aware of these failings of the company and its ships. They set out to gain a foothold in the trade through innovations, particularly after the East India Company’s monopoly in Britain’s China trade was abolished in 1833.

British shipping remained rather stagnant after the development of the East Indiaman in the 17th century. The Dutch became the innovators in the second half of the 17th century and maintained that status until the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. The British East India Company was paying £40 a ton for ships whereas other owners paid only £25. In the 19th century American shipbuilders studied basic principles of sail propulsion and built excellent ships more cheaply. They also studied how to staff and operate them economically. The Americans began to see that even larger ships (that is, longer in relation to breadth) could carry more sail and thereby gain speed and the ability to sail well under more types of winds. For perishable cargoes speed meant that these fast ships reached British and European markets before those of their competitors and with a product in better condition.

In the 25 years after 1815 American ships changed in weight from 500 to 1,200 tons and in configuration from a hull with a length 4 times the beam to one with a ratio of 5 1/2 to 1. The faster and thus shorter journeys meant that the shipowner could earn back his investment in two or three years. The Mayflower had taken 66 days to cross the Atlantic in 1620. The Black Ball Lines’ nine-year average as of 1825 was 23 days from Liverpool to New York City. Twenty years later Atlantic ships had doubled in size and were not credited as a success unless they had made at least a single east-bound dash of 14 days or less.

The culmination of these American innovations was the creation of a hull intended primarily for speed, which came with the clipper ships. Clippers were long, graceful three-masted ships with projecting bows and exceptionally large spreads of sail. The first of these, the Rainbow, was built in New York in 1845. It was followed by a number of ships built there and in East Boston particularly intended for the China-England tea trade, which was opened to all merchant marines by the late 1840s. Subsequently the Witch of the Wave (an American clipper) sailed from Canton to Deal, England, in 1852 in just 90 days. Similar feats of sailing were accomplished in Atlantic crossings. In 1854 the Lightning sailed 436 miles in a day, at an average speed of 18 1/2 knots.

By 1840, however, it was clear that the last glorious days of the sailing ship were at hand. Pure sailing ships were in active use for another generation, while the earliest steamships were being launched. But by 1875 the pure sailer was disappearing, and by the turn of the 20th century the last masts on passenger ships had been removed.