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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060

Online Library of Selected Images:
-- GLOSSARY --

"CLIPPER" BOWS

"Clipper" bows, which extend in a more-or-less graceful curve upwards from a ship's forward waterline, were the normal stem form of sailing vessels. In addition to sometimes helping support the bowsprit, they were often extensively decorated with figureheads and scrollwork. During the Nineteenth Century "clipper" bows were often applied to steamships, but were generally superseded on merchant ships by the "plumb" bow form by the early Twentieth Century.

However, as a modified form of the raked bow, the "clipper" form has enjoyed a fair amount of popularity through the Twentieth and into the Twenty-first Centuries on warships, yachts and passenger liners employed in the cruising trades.

This page features a definition of the term "clipper" bow, with appropriate illustrations.


Examples of "clipper" bows:

"CLIPPER" BOW, as seen on S.S. New York, 1917. This ship became USS Plattsburg (ID # 1645) in 1918.

Cropped from Photo # NH 42619.

 
"CLIPPER" BOW, as seen on USS Chicago (CL-29) in April 1931.

Cropped from Photo # NH 70635.

 


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Page made 17 March 2007