|
HISTORY
Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869
for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea
clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end
of a long period of design development which halted as sailing
ships gave way to steam propulsion.
The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steam
ships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark
spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the
trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to
Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology meant
that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer
sailing route to Australia and the ship was sold to the
Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895, and renamed
Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased by
retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922, who used her as a
training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his
death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical
Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an
auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954
she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred
to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display.
Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the
National Historic Fleet (the nautical equivalent of a Grade 1
Listed Building). She is one of only three remaining original
composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) clipper
ships from the nineteenth century in part or whole, the others
being the City of Adelaide, which arrived in Port Adelaide,
South Australia on 3 February 2014 for preservation, and the
beached skeleton of Ambassador of 1869 near Punta Arenas, Chile.
The ship has been damaged by fire twice in recent years, first
on 21 May 2007 while undergoing conservation. She was restored
and was reopened to the public on 25 April 2012. On 19 October
2014 she was damaged in a smaller fire.
|
