I have visited the Cutty Sark clipper ship a couple of times. The very first time back in the mid-70s when I was an Engineering Cadet with BP and it was one of the things that we visited on a trip to London from the marine college in Southampton. My overriding memory was wondering how this bulging hull could have raced from Australia to the UK in days 80 days and topped 17knotes.
The simple answer is being sat on blocks at Greenwich over the years was not kind to the hull which had deformed over the years.
Following the devastating fire in 2007 caused by a faulty vacuum that had been left on, the ship has been fully restored and now makes a great day out, or will when it opens again after Coveid restrictions are lifted. She now sits in special supports that suspend the hull from the waterline so the original shape of this greyhound of the sea has returned, even if it's a little disconcerting walking underneath.
The History Bit
Built-in Dumbarton in 1869 for Jock Wills Shipping she was one of the last Tea clipper ships of the golden age of sail designed to bring tea from China to the UK as fast as possible which she could do in around 110 days given favorable winds. Following the opening of the Suez Canal, the new-fangled steamships became a faster better option for the tea trade and the Cutty Sark moved to the wool trade from Australia to the UK until 1895 when she was sold and renamed Ferreira by her new Portuguese and started runs across the Atlantic from South America to Europe. Sheltering in a storm in 1922 she put into Falmouth and was seen by a retired sea Captain Wilfred Dowman who became determined to buy the last operating clipper ship. When he died in 1936 the ship was given to Thames Nautical Training College by his widow Catharine Dowman and converted to a sail training ship for cadets. In 1953 she was given to the Cutty Sark Preservation Trust and turned into the museum we see today in a purpose-built drydock in Greenwich.
Today you can see the tall clipper ship masts from all over Greenwich in south London so it's easy to find. inside the ship the are various displays of the tea trade to China and her history and some of the famous races against other tea clippers like the Thermopylae, and her later years running wool from Australia.
Ok, Hivers that's it for now. If you ever get the opportunity it's well worth a visit
