Exotic contrasting woods were used in American ships for saloon and cabin panelling, or a white enamel finish with gilded mouldings and flowered ornamentation on the heads of fluted pilasters. Numerous framed mirrors and stained glass windows were also featured and there were more skylights to give light and air than on the British ships. The accommodation deck heights of 7 to 8 ft were higher than the British, which were under 7 ft, their deckhouses averaging 6 ft.

  American deckhouses also favoured an overhanging deck edge on the fore side supported by long carved brackets. This was another indication of the relative dryness of American ships with their high freeboards, as such overhangs on British clippers would soon be damaged by seas.

  The larger British sailing ships later in the century did have overhanging decks to the poop front, but they were not such wet ships as the clippers. Even so it was a dangerous form of design as a man could be lifted by a body of water and have his skull cracked under the overhang-which sometimes happened.

  Externally the hulls on American clippers were frequently described as being glass smooth with an enamel-like finish. The seams of such planking would be finished off with a putty compound over the caulking. This would last until the ship started straining, when the seams would inevitably show again. No doubt many British clippers had a similarly high quality finish also, but in some cases the adze was the finishing tool. The Cutty Sark when seen with light reflecting on the hull shows these adze marks quite distinctly, but possibly in her case the finishing touches were rather hasty, owing to financial troubles during her building.

  The hull planking on wooden ships was thicker in the region of the waterline and some distance above it, this part being called the wales. In earlier times this thickened planking was made distinctly visible by a definite step down to the thinner planking both above and below it, and was usually painted black. Towards the period of the tea clippers the step was being eliminated by a gradual tapering down over three or four planks, at first on the lower side and then the upper, so that the whole hull had a smooth appearance. This was the case with the British clippers and some of the Americans. Other American clippers retained the upper step, sometimes with a moulding, which left a narrow strip of the hull between it and the planksheer, known as the waist. This area could occupy about six planks or less.

  The bulwark planking was invariably thinner than the hull planking and consequently the top of the planksheer formed another step down, and as the planksheer projected, often as a special moulding, it formed quite a distinctive step. American clippers could therefore have as many as four mouldings on the hull if we include amain rail and monkey rail or topgallant rail.