CUTTY SARK CLIPPER SHIP

The Cutty Sark Clipper Ship, is the most famous of all the tea and wool clipper ships in history and considered by 19th century seamen and others that knew her, to have been the finest and fastest clipper ship to have ever come out of Britain. It is now preserved in a purpose built dry-dock in Greenwich, south east London, England.

The ship was built in Dumbarton in 1869, the same year that the Suez Canal was opened, an event which ironically was to signal the beginning of the end of the Clipper ships and effectively signed their death warrants.

The Cutty Sark was primarily designed by Hercules Linton and constructed by the shipbuilding firm of Scott and Linton, with the express purpose of outsailing the clipper ship Thermopylae.

The previous year in May 1868, Hercules Linton had gone into partnership with William Dundas Scott, to form the shipbuilding firm of Scott and Linton, with Linton in charge of the design and shipbuilding, while Scott managed the engineering side of the partnership.

On the 1st February 1869, the agreement to build the Cutty Sark clipper ship was signed by John 'Jock' (also known as 'White Hat') Willis, who after having been an experienced shipmaster in his father's shipbuilding business, was now in his own right a very experienced shipowner.

CUTTY SARK CLIPPER SHIP MUSEUM

The Cutty Sark Trust took over from the Cutty Sark Society in the year 2000 and the ship is now a Grade I listed monument. It is also listed on the Buildings At Risk Register.

The ship was made into a museum and preserved in a custom-built dry-dock near the centre of Greenwich in south east London.

It became a very popular tourist attraction in Greenwich, until the morning of the 21st May 2007 when the Cutty Sark Clipper Ship mysteriously caught fire and was very badly damaged.

The ship which had been closed to the public for conservation works, had thankfully been partially dismantled to enable these works to take place.

It was revealed by the Cutty Sark Trust that at least half of the ships fabric was safe, as it had been removed from site after being dismantled during the course of the preservation works.

The fire raged for several hours, causing extensive damage to the remainder of the ship which was still on site, before it was eventually brought under control by the London Fire Brigade.

The initial reports of the extensive damage caused by the fire were too terrible to fully absorb, for they stated that most of the wooden structure in the centre of the ship had been lost. Consumed in the conflagration.

The greatest worry for the Cutty Sark Trust however, was the condition of the iron framework to which the wooden fabric etc. was attached.

The possibility that it was arson was first mooted after the initial analysis of the CCTV coverage of the area. But over the next few days, further investigation by the Metropolitan Police found no conclusive evidence of foul play.

A fire officer involved in the firefighting said in an interview by the BBC, that upon arriving at the scene, what they were witnessing was "a well developed fire throughout the ship", although both the bow and the stern sections appeared to be relatively unscathed and the fire seemed to be concentrated in the centre of the ship.

After an inspection of the site, the Chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises said "that the ships decks were not salvageable, but around 50% of the planking had already been removed; however, the damage is not as bad as originally expected".

The Cutty Sark Trust claimed that under 5% of the original fabric was lost in the fire, as the decks which were destroyed were non - original additions.

THE CONCLUSION FROM THE INVESTIGATION.

The conclusion of the investigation by the London Fire Brigade into the cause of the fire on the Cutty Sark was announced on the 30th September 2008.

Taking part in this very painstaking investigation along with the London Fire Brigade, were the London Metropolitan Police, Forensic Science Services and Dr. Burgoyne's & Partners, the electrical examination experts.

They reached the joint conclusion that the most likely cause of the fire was the failure of an industrial vacuum cleaner which had inadvertently been left switched on for forty eight hours prior to the fire starting.

The report concluded that the fire had started accidentally and revealed that there was no evidence to suggest that the Cutty Sark Clipper Ship had been the subject of an arson attack.

THE PHOENIX RISES FROM THE ASHES

During his announcement, that the government was going to provide the final three million pounds required to complete the restoration, by means of a government grant, thus ensuring that the Cutty Sark would be completely restored in time for the 2012 Olympic Games, Gordon Brown, I suspect, got it just about right. He admitted to being one among the many, many doubters, who thought the ship was beyond salvation when he said,

"Everyone was shocked and saddened as we watched those terrible images of fire on the news. People wondered then whether Cutty Sark could ever be brought back to its former glory."

Who could disagree with those words, having watched the television coverage of the inferno and the black columns of smoke, which could be seen for miles around, rising from the smouldering wreckage.

Millions of people were left wondering as to whether the beautiful sight of the three masts of the much loved Cutty Sark Clipper Ship, an icon of the city skyline, would ever be seen towering majestically over the Greenwich rooftops ever again.

The original pre-fire restoration works, which included a plan to allow visitors to be able to walk underneath the ship for the first time, in order to admire the curvaceous lines, which allowed it to travel at such speeds at sea, meant that the entire hull had to be lifted off the bottom of the dry-dock. The entire project was costed at twenty five million pounds.

The damage caused by the fire, the extra work needed (which had been revealed by the fire) in repairing the up until then unknown natural decay of it's one hundred and fifty years life span, (fifty years of which had been spent out of water) and the delay in restarting the restoration works, nearly doubled the cost of the restoration programme to Forty Six Million Pounds.

The Heritage Lottery Grant, from an original thirteen million pounds has risen to over twenty five million pounds. (For once the people running The Heritage Lottery Fund used common sense, something they appear to have been lacking in enormous amounts over the years and decided to use the money to do exactly what ninety nine percent of the public want the money to be used for. WORTHY CAUSES)

Although, the immediate reaction after the fire was shock, disbelief and deep despair by many people, the damage proved less of a disaster than was at first apparent. A lot of the fabric destroyed in the fire was only dated from the restoration works which had been carried out in the nineteen fifties.

Much of the ship's original features were safely in storage having already been removed prior to the fire.

This included the well known and well loved figurehead of the witch in her short nightshift, The Cutty Sark, after which the ship had been named.

All being well and everything going to plan, the Cutty Sark Clipper Ship should be open again in all her glory, to greet the first visitors arriving here for the London Olympic Games in 2012.

It is also the year in which Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II will bestow the title Royal Borough of Greenwich on the Cutty Sark Clipper Ship's adopted home berth, to mark the year of her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, which also occurs in 2012.

Go To Next Page: History of the Cutty Sark Clipper Ship

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