The game is designed for 2, 3, or 4 participants who race their clippers to the centre of the map, which is divided into a spiral of 196 squares; the winner is the first to land on the last square, Wellington. The hazards the clippers have to go through include storms, contrary winds, and wrecks; all of which send the player back several squares.

Interestingly, there are no steamships plying the waters around New Zealand, and clippers had ceased to trading in these waters by the first decade of the twentieth century.