Scottish Maid

Scottish Maid was a Scottish packet boat, a two-masted wooden schooner, built at Alexander Hall and Sons' boatyard in 1839 for the Aberdeen Line. She has been described as the first clipper vessel to be built in Britain. Her design of sharp, forward-raked bow, later called the "clipper bow" or Aberdeen bow, pioneered a succession of larger clipper ships with many also built in Aberdeen on Scotland's northeast coast.

Scottish Maid
Scottish Maid, painting by J. Fanner (1888)
History
OwnerAlexander Nicol & George Munro
Port of registryAberdeen (4 November 1843)
RouteAberdeen to London (originally)
Ordered1839
BuilderAlexander Hall and Sons
Cost£1700
Yard number101
Laid down1839
Launched15 July 1839
HomeportAberdeen, Scotland
IdentificationUK Official Number: 3507
FateWrecked (26 August 1888)
General characteristics
TypeSchooner, clipper
Tonnage142 GRT ("1836 measurement"), 136 NRT
Length89.25 feet (27.20 m) (internal)
Beam19.6 feet (6.0 m) (internal)
Depth11.4 feet (3.5 m) (internal)
Sail planTwo-mast topsail schooner
Complementc.6
NotesCoaster: general cargo; constructed of wood

Scottish Maid was designed to take advantage of a deficiency in Britain's tonnage laws of 1836 so that her officially measured tonnage, and hence tax payable, was low compared with her load carrying capacity. As her designers anticipated, her shape of hull produced a fast vessel and to optimise this her bow (pointed front) was given an innovative shape to cut through the water cleanly – a profile that turned out to be particularly successful. The extreme clipper ships later in the 19th century had substantially larger hulls though they were somewhat similar in shape.

The word "clipper" was first used for sailing vessels in the United States and argument arose in the 20th century about whether Scottish Maid's underlying design had been copied from America, and whether she should properly have been called a clipper at all. It now seems agreed that "clipper" is best regarded as simply a name for a fast merchant sailing vessel and the particular design was arrived at independently on the two sides of the Atlantic.

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