The clippers, developed and mainly used between about 1840 and 1860 were some of the last and "best" commercial sailing ships invented. The clippers had more sails and faster hulls and were some of the fastest sailing ships ever developed. The clippers required a larger crew to man the larger expanse of sails and typically carried high value cargo with few passenger accommodations. Under ideal conditions clippers have been logged at over —covering over in one day. The average speed over a long journey was about . The typical clipper carried high value, large volume cargo and normally carried only about six passengers. They competed with the paddle steamers on the shorter Panama, Nicaragua, and Mexican routes. Because of their shorter runs these paddle steamers were faster but much more costly to run and typically only took high value cargo like passengers, mail and gold shipments. Clippers averaged about 120 days passage on the about trip between East Coast cities and San Francisco—about 80 days faster travel than the conventional sailing ships.