Cutty Sark

The Cutty Sark, one of Britain's best loved maritime treasures, has been seriously damaged in an fire. The the last surviving tea clipper, it is preserved in a dry dock in Greenwich in south-east London. It has been undergoing a substantial renovation because sea salt had speeded up the corrosion of her iron framework.

Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, said "The chief fire officer on the site has told me the ship is 100% alight in the hold. They are treating it as suspicious at moment” With regard to the state of the ship he said "When you lose the original fabric, you lose the touch of the craftsmen. You lose history itself. What is special about Cutty Sark is the timber, the iron frames that went to the South China Sea. To think that is threatened in any way is unbelievable. It is an unimaginable shock."

The full extent of the damage to the ship’s structure remains to be seen. It certainly does not look good and if it is destroyed then it will be a severe loss to our maritime history.

The Cutty Sark is 137 years old, making it the world's sole surviving tea clipper. Built in 1869 it was originally used to deliver tea from China in the 1870s. She was one of the last tea clippers built, but as this trade was taken over by the steamers using the Suez Canal, she turned to general trading including transporting wool from Australia.

Captain Dowman of Falmouth decided she should be preserved. In 1922 bought the ship and made her part of a floating nautical school. In 1938, his widow presented the ship to the Thames Nautical Training School at Greenhithe. They maintained the ship until 1952 when the Cutty Sark Preservation Society was formed. The ship was permanently installed in a stone dry-dock at Greenwich on the Thames, and fully restored to her appearance as an active sailing vessel.