rope. It was estimated that by replacing wood and hemp with steel, she saved 21 tons weight aloft, besides getting less wind resistance and a very considerable increase in strength. The Seaforth was the first vessel to have steel spars and rigging, but they soon came into use on board the tea clippers.
The wild, speculative years of ship-owning which followed the discovery of gold in California and Australia, when a clipper ship was expected to pay for herself every voyage or two, had now passed away. Ship-owners retained a lively recollection of the crash in 1857 and the depression which followed, so the tea clippers were built with an eye to economy as well as speed. The rates of freight, which in the early fifties had been £6 and even as high as £8 per ton, were in 1863 £4 10s. to £5 per ton—still fine paying rates on the investment of capital, after allowing for running expenses and depreciation. Ship-owning in Great Britain had now become established upon a less profitable, though more rational and substantial basis.
The tea clippers carried from 200 to 300 tons of clean shingle ballast, laid beautifully smooth and even, upon which the chests of tea were stowed, and a considerable quantity of dunnage wood, for which allowances were made in reckoning the actual cargo capacity. The Taeping, which under the new rules based on the cubic capacity of the hull registered 767 tons, carried 1234 tons of tea at 50 cubit feet per ton, with a crew of 30 men all told. Vessels were now designed on scientific principles, and it may be doubted whether the qualities then desirable in a merchant sailing ship
