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As a provisional idea, this page, the SS Erl King (1865) and others could be grouped in a category: "Early China Trade steamships". The logic is that these vessels made the technological step with steam power that enabled the very long distance voyages involved in going from Britain to China. They also put the Tea Clipper out of business - note that the Agamemnon (and also the Erl King) were carrying tea before the Suez Canal opened in 1869. The canal was just the last straw for sailing ships carrying high-value cargoes. (It is ironic that some clippers ended their days taking coal to distant coaling stations or even as hulks to store the coal.)
Sadly, these highly innovative steamships are often ignored because they made "romantic" clippers redundant. (There is nothing romantic skinning your knuckles trying to stow a square sail in the dark and the rain.) When we just focus on the sailing ships in this era (as I have done), we are displaying an irrational prejudice against an important part of transportation history.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:05, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
