The sailing clippers were fast and were sailed hard.
The monohull sailing record for 24 hours was set in 1854 by "Champion of the Sea" at 467nm[1]. It wasn't broken by another monohull until 2003 by "Illbruck".
The modern foiling (or at least foil stabalized) IMOCA 60 ft boats are up to 558nm[2] while foiling trimarans are up to 908nm (!)
The reason why monohull records had not been broken in a long time is because speed is largely a measure of wet hull length (unless you're planing or on foils). Race sail boats are just much shorter than those old freight boats, so they really only started breaking records once they build such they could get consistently onto the plane or foils.
Yes this is true and a great point, although it's mildly surprising that some of the maxis from the 1970's onwards weren't reliably planing.
I had a quick look at race records, and even pretty formidable ones like Kialoa III's Sydney-Hobart records from 1975 that stood for 21 years was only 10 knots[1] (compared to over 20 for the clipper records)
The monohull sailing record for 24 hours was set in 1854 by "Champion of the Sea" at 467nm[1]. It wasn't broken by another monohull until 2003 by "Illbruck".
The modern foiling (or at least foil stabalized) IMOCA 60 ft boats are up to 558nm[2] while foiling trimarans are up to 908nm (!)
[1] https://www.sailspeedrecords.com/24-hour-distance
[2] https://www.imoca.org/en/standings/records