Not a Ship
Stephen Sanfilippo correctly states that the Pride of Baltimore was not a “clipper ship”– a “ship” has three or more masts that are all square rigged. What she was was a “Baltimore clipper,” or “clipper topsail schooner.” If of sharp model and heavily canvassed, a schooner, bark, four-masted bark, brig, half-brig, barkentine, ship, or what have you, might all properly be described as clippers. For example, there was a popular and dangerous type of Gloucester schooner of the latter 1800s known then and now as “clipper fishermen” or “clipper schooners.” Also, while Sanfilippo states that the mast heads of clipper ships were “over a hundred feet above the deck,” surely none was that low, being generally more than half again higher then that, sometimes well more. Sanfilippo described clipper ships as having ranged in length from 200 to 400 feet, although the longest and largest American clipper ship – in fact she was launched with the rig of a four-masted bark, but was termed a “ship” – was Great Republic, which measured about 325 feet in length for tonnage purposes. Finally, the Pride of Baltimore did not spring a plank, but rather – as with many of the clipper fishermen of Gloucester’s fleet – capsized and sank.
William H. Bunting
Whitefield, Maine