pre WW2 Clipper ships

[ssgross]

Steam, whilst hugely inefficient at first, eventually killed off the Clippers

If you haven't read it yet, I recommend Joshua Slocum's autobiography "Sailing alone around the world", set right in the tail end of this transition. An old sailing master out of work decided to fix up a boat and become a fisherman. Quickly found out that he wasn't any good at it, and kept on sailing. Such was the first singlehanded circumnavigation of the globe. I'll let the internet tell you how he ended his otherwise exemplary life in shame.