The Northern Light was a clipper ship built in Boston in 1851. Her design was radically innovative, being sharply raked below the waterline, and it created a great deal of buzz in homes, taverns, and at social gatherings all along the East Coast.
The Northern Light set a speed record in 1854 for the voyage from San Francisco to the East Coast which stood until the 1990s when it was beaten by a high-tech racing catamaran sailed with the aid of modern satellite navigation.
In its record-setting voyage, the Northern Light was in a head-to-head race with two other clipper ships from the New York School of clipper ship design and the race was the first sports competition between Boston and New York. Via telegraph, everyone was able to follow the race, making the event the first nationwide media-broadcast sporting event.
When the Northern Light was spotted charging into Boston harbor under full sail, days ahead of the ships from New York, it touched off a wild victory party that rolled through the streets of the city for four days.
