Cutty Sark

For other uses, see Cutty-sark.

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Cutty Sark sailing

Cutty Sark in Greenwich, October 2003

The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. Built in 1869, she served as a merchant vessel (the last clipper to be built for that purpose), and then as a training ship until being put on public display in 1954. She is preserved in dry dock at Greenwich in London, but was damaged in a fire on 21 May 2007 while undergoing extensive restoration.

Etymology

The ship is named after the cutty sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment ). This was the nickname of the fictional character Nannie (also the name of the ship's figurehead) in Robert Burns' 1791 comic poem Tam o' Shanter. She was wearing a linen cutty sark that she had been given as a child, therefore it was far too small for her. The erotic sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which subsequently became a well known idiom.

History

The ship was designed by Hercules Linton and built in 1869 at Dumbarton, Scotland, by the firm of Scott & Linton, for Captain John "Jock" "White Hat" Willis, and launched November 22 of that year.

Cutty Sark was destined for the tea trade, then an intensely competitive race across the globe from China to London, with immense profits to the ship to arrive with the first tea of the year. However, she did not distinguish herself; in the most famous race, against Thermopylae in 1872, both ships left Shanghai together on June 18, but two weeks later Cutty Sark lost her rudder after passing through the Sunda Strait, and arrived in London on October 18, a week after Thermopylae, a total passage of 122 days. Her legendary reputation is supported by the fact that her captain chose to continue this race with an improvised rudder instead of putting into port for a replacement, yet was only beaten by one week.

In the end, clippers lost out to steamships, which could pass through the recently-opened Suez Canal and deliver goods more reliably, if not quite so quickly, which proved to be better for business. Cutty Sark was then used on the Australian wool trade. Under the respected Captain Richard Woodget, she did very well, posting Australia-to-Britain times of as little as 67 days. Her best run, 360 nautical miles (666 km) in 24 hours (an average 15kt, 27.75 km/h), was said to have been the fastest of any ship of her size.

In 1895 Willis sold her to the Portuguese firm Ferreira and she was renamed Ferreira after the firm, although her crews referred to her as Pequena Camisola ("little shirt", a straight translation of the Scots "cutty sark"). In 1916 she was dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope, sold, re-rigged in Cape Town as a barquentine, and renamed Maria do Amparo. In 1922 she was bought by Captain Wilfred Dowman, who restored her to her original appearance and used her as a stationary training ship. In 1954 she was moved to a custom-built dry-dock at Greenwich.

Cutty Sark is also preserved in literature in Hart Crane's long poem "The Bridge" which was published in 1930.

Museum ship

The Cutty Sark was preserved as a museum ship and popular tourist attraction. She is located near the centre of Greenwich, in south-east London, close aboard the National Maritime Museum, the former Greenwich Hospital, and Greenwich Park. She is also a prominent landmark on the route of the London Marathon. She usually flies signal flags from her ensign halyard reading "JKWS", which is the code representing Cutty Sark in the International Code of Signals, introduced in 1857.

The ship is in the care of the Cutty Sark Trust, whose president, the Duke of Edinburgh, was instrumental in ensuring her preservation, when he set up the Cutty Sark Society in 1951. The Trust replaced the Society in 2000. She is a Grade I listed monument and is on the Buildings At Risk Register.

Cutty Sark station on the Docklands Light Railway is one minute's walk away, with connections to central London and the London Underground. Greenwich Pier is next to the ship, and is served by scheduled river boats from piers in central London. A tourist information office stands to the east of the ship.

Conservation and fire

On 21 May 2007 the Cutty Sark, which had been closed and partly dismantled for conservation work, caught fire.

The ship was reported by the BBC to be completely ablaze. The fire was reported to the fire service at 03:46 UTC by members of the public. A representative of London Fire Brigade said at 06:09 UTC that the fire was well under control and that damage was extensive but until the experts could make a full damage assessment survey, it was unknown just how much has been lost. The fire was declared by a journalist on site to have been out at 06:21 UTC, with most of the wooden structure in the centre having been lost.

In an interview with the chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust it was revealed that at least half of the "fabric" (timbers, etc) of the ship is not on the site as it is being dismantled for the preservation work, and that they are most worried about the iron framework to which the fabric is attached.

Aerial video footage at 06:22 UTC showed extensive damage but seems to indicate that the ship has not been destroyed in its entirety. A fire officer present at the scene said in a BBC interview that when they arrived, there was "a well-developed fire throughout the ship". The bow section looks to be relatively unscathed and the stern also appears to have survived without major damage. The fire seems to have been concentrated in the centre of the ship.

The Chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises who has inspected the site said at around 07:35 UTC, "The decks are unsalvageable but around 50% of the planking had already been removed; however, the damage is not as bad as originally expected." It has already been stated that the ship can be restored, the damage being less than at first thought, and with up to half of the original materials currently being stored off-site during restoration. The chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust did not know how much extra the ship would cost to restore, but estimated it at an additional £5-10 million, bringing the total cost of the ship's restoration to £30-35 million.

It has also been officially stated that, once restored, the ship will still be the original Cutty Sark and not a replica although it is obvious that material lost in the blaze will have to be re-created. The bow was predominantly undamaged, the stern appears fairly intact, and the rest, such as the midsection, whilst damaged, should at least be in part repairable.

The cause of the fire is currently unknown but is being treated as "suspicious" by the authorities.

As part of the restoration work planned before the fire, it was proposed that the ship be raised three metres, to allow the construction of a state of the art museum space beneath. This would allow visitors to view her from below.

For a long time, there has been growing criticism of the policies of the Cutty Sark Trust and its stance that the most important thing was to preserve as much as possible of the original fabric. However, much of the original fabric that was not stored off-site was damaged by the fire. This has been put forth as a reason for the Cutty Sark to be rebuilt in a manner that would allow her to put to sea again by proponents of the idea. There are currently two petitions to the UK Prime Minister, one for funds to restore the ship, and the other for funds to restore the ship into commission as a sail training vessel.

General specifications

The Cutty Sark is one of only three surviving ships of its time that has a composite wrought iron frame structure covered by wooden planking. The hull has a Muntz metal coating.

Bow of the Cutty Sark

• Tonnage: 921 tons (936 tonnes)
• Hull length: 212.5 ft (64.8 m)
• Beam: 36 ft (11 m)
• Draft: 21 ft (6.4 m)

Yard lengths (after being cut down in Sydney harbour):

• Fore
  • fore course 21.0 yd (19.2 m)
  • lower topsail 16.8 yd (15.4 m)
  • upper topsail 14.6 yd (13.4 m)
  • topgallant 11.5 yd (10.5 m)
  • royal 9.4 yd (8.6 m)
• Main
  • main course 21.6 yd (19.8 m)
  • lower topsail 18.5 yd (16.9 m)
  • upper topsail 16.8 yd (15.4 m)
  • topgallant 14.2 yd (13.0 m)
  • royal 10.4 yd (9.5 m)
• Mizzen
  • mizzen course 17.4 yd (15.9 m)
  • lower topsail 14.9 yd (13.6 m)
  • upper topsail 13.4 yd (12.3 m)
  • topgallant 11.0 yd (10.1 m)
  • royal 8.2 yd (7.5 m)
  • spanker 14.1 yd (12.9 m)

References in popular culture

Cutty Sark inspired the name of a brand of whisky. An image of the ship appears on the label, and the maker formerly sponsored the Cutty Sark Tall Ships' Race. She also inspired the name of the Saunders Roe Cutty Sark flying boat. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck part three-and-a-half: The Cowboy Captain of the Cutty Sark by Don Rosa features the ship herself. In the award winning science fiction novel Blue Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson, the Cutty Sark is portrayed sailing in one of the newly created channels on Earth following a major flood bought upon by volcanic activity in Antarctica. Cutty Sark is also mentioned in a song "Single-handed Sailor", performed by Dire Straits.

On Thursday 24 May 2007, Jonathan Ross revealed that he had missed the recent BAFTAs and failed to pick up his award because he was on a family trip to Cutty Sark. The comments were aired the next day as part of the Jonathan Ross show. A joke was also made as though it was Jonathan himself who burnt down the Cutty Sark.

The following day, during an episode of Have I Got News for You, Paul Merton kept insisting that the Duke of Edinburgh had burnt down the ship.

In a season three episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Gamera versus Guiron, Crow T. Robot comments on the giant knife headed monster Guiron by saying, "I bet he drinks Cutty Sark."

See also

• Cutty Sark (short story)
• City of Adelaide
• Falls of Clyde
• Star of India

External links

• Cutty Sark homepage
• Cutty Sark history
• The official Science Museum print website containing some Cutty Sark prints and posters
• A family connection to her
• Cutty Sark, Virtual Reality image Quicktime image of the tea clipper
• Aerial view of Cutty Sark at Google Maps
• Template:IoEentry
• Heritage at Risk Register: 4529
• MaritimeQuest Cutty Sark Pages