This story of the schooners and those who sailed them takes the reader from the handy colonial schooner through the search for speed that led eventually to the graceful Baltimore clipper. It follows a course of excitement and romance in which swift, sharp-built vessels of the Chesapeake gave rise to countless tales of high adventure. A major portion of the book is devoted to the history of the centerboarders that were the workhorses of the Bay in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. No other book has chronicled the entire history of the commercial schooner, including its economic and social aspects. The authors have relied heavily upon those who sailed the last schooners to tell their own stories and have spent hours with maritime historians.