On a lighter note

The Guardian reports that beautiful tea clipper the Cutty Sark should be back in its full glory in time for the 2012 Olympics after the final element of funding needed to complete restoration was provided by the government.

In May 2007 the hull seemed to have been all but destroyed in a catastrophic fire. Many people doubted that the Cutty Sark could ever be resurrected.

Built in 1869, the Cutty Sark is the last surviving tea clipper to race to the east for the precious harvest of tea. It had been in dry dock in Greenwich for over 50 years during which salts locked inside the hull corroded the iron ribs of its structure.

The ship was in the process of being restored at the time of the fire. Fortunately the damage proved less disastrous than first appeared. Much of the fabric destroyed actually dated from work in the 1950s, and many original features had already been removed and were safely in store – including the figurehead of the witch in her short nightshirt, the Cutty Sark of the ship's name.

This is good news I can’t wait to see it back in its rightful glory.

Cutty Sark - update

It looks like the fire aboard the Cutty Sark may have been started deliberately, police say. Police have been examining CCTV images which are thought to show people in the area shortly before the fire started.

The damage does not seem to have been quite as bad as originally feared: also much of the ship had been removed for restoration - half the planking and the masts are in storage at the Chatham dockyard

The chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, Richard Doughty, said: "Buckling of the hull remains a big fear but until we do the measurements we are not going to know. With my naked eye, as far as I have been able to see, the structure of the ship seems to be intact."

Dr Eric Kentley, curatorial consultant to the Cutty Sark Trust, said of the ship: "It can be saved. It's certainly not completely devastated. We will put her back together - but it's going to take much, much longer and a lot more money than we originally thought."

I hope the fire was not as devastating as originally feared. The not-wife has a family link to the vessel – her great-great grandfather served aboard the ship in the 19^th century

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.