A great deal depended on the commander, the great variety of hull forms giying only individual advantage under certain conditions. It is fair therefore to say that 10 to 12 knots was a good allround speed.

  There has never been an event so grand in its scope as a race between tea clippers from China to England, requiring as it did the fullest measure of human endurance, skill, courage and expert knowledge. The races were not organized events with an even start on the firing line-the prime motive behind them was strictly business. But as the tea industry was a seasonal affair, groups of vessels would congregate together to load up from their ,'arious sources of supply. Sometimes a vessel would be loaded, all her official papers completed and a tug taking her to the open sea, when the  master of another ship, seeing this, would hastily finish loading and without waiting for the completion of official formalities would get his ship moving in a frantic endeavour to catch up with his rival.

  From this moment followed the long passage home through gales, calm belts, fair winds and foul-the ships sighting each other only to lose contact again. Sometimes one ahead, sometimes the other, each displaying her better qualities under the varying conditions. One ship would ghost along under a whisper of a breeze, to the chagrin of the other lying as motionless as a derelict in a backwater. In heavy weather the positions might reverse; the latter ship romping along with effervescent foam sizzling past her waist, and nature's energy pulling with a hundred fingers from the corners of every available stitch of canvas-even odd scraps of tarpaulin, boat covers and blankets might be harnessed to the cause. In contrast her companion would gradually drop astern over the horizon, her sail reduced for fear of driving the ship beyond her ability. Then other ships from different loading ports would join in the race as the routes to home waters converged on the main track.
 
 The route from China was perilous enough from the moment a ship left her anchorage, quite apart from the monsoons. The Min River from the Pagoda Anchorage at Foochow was a narrow gorge with a fastflowing current. Old-timers used to say that the opposite banks were so close that monkeys jumping across got their tails entangled in the brace blocks. Several clippers met their fate entering or leaving this passage, as, if either the heel or forefoot touched the bank they would be swung round by the current, heel over losing stability, and lie half submerged at an angle in a matter of minutes. They would then be stripped of all movable parts by local fishermen or pirates as quickly as the wreckers or looters on the wild coast of Britain in the old days would clean out a hull.
This was the fate of the Oriental in 1853 and the British Vision in 1857, to name but two of many.