them to the design of a deepwater ship was a bold conception. It
was first attempted by Isaac McKim, a Baltimore merchant, who
ordered his builders in 1832 to reproduce as closely as possible
the superior sailing qualities of the renowned clipper brigs and
schooners of their own port. The result was the Ann McKim, of
nearly five hundred tons, the first Yankee clipper ship, and
distinguished as such by her long, easy water-lines, low
free-board, and raking stem. She was built and finished without
regard to cost, copper-sheathed, the decks gleaming with
brasswork and mahogany fittings. But though she was a very fast
and handsome ship and the pride of her owner, the Ann McKim could
stow so little cargo that shipping men regarded her as
unprofitable and swore by their full-bodied vessels a few years
longer.

That the Ann McKim, however, influenced the ideas of the most
progressive builders is very probable, for she was later owned by
the New York firm of Howland and Aspinwall, who placed an order
for the first extremely sharp clipper ship of the era. This
vessel, the Rainbow, was designed by John W. Griffeths, a marine
architect, who was a pioneer in that he studied shipbuilding as a
science instead of working by rule-of-thumb. The Rainbow, which
created a sensation while on the stocks because of her concave or
hollowed lines forward, which defied all tradition and practice,
was launched in 1845. She was a more radical innovation than the
Ann McKim but a successful one, for on her second voyage to China
the Rainbow went out against the northeast monsoon in ninety-two
days and came home in eighty-eight, a record which few ships were
able to better. Her commander, Captain John Land, declared her to
be the fastest ship in the world and there were none to dispute