Cutty Sark is a clipper ship preserved at Greenwich, in London. The Cutty Sark was one of the fastest sailing ships ever built. It was designed for carrying tea from China. It was built on the Clyde, at Dumbarton, Scotland, and launched in 1869. The Cutty Sark measured 212 feet (64.5 meters) in length and 36 feet (11 meters) in width. It had a sail area of 32,292 square feet (3,000 square meters), a large area in proportion to its size. The Cutty Sark had a maximum speed of 19 miles (31 kilometers) per hour, or 17 knots, a good rate for a sailing ship of the time.
During the years it was employed in the tea trade, the Cutty Sark proved exceptionally fast but could not match the speed of its rival, the Thermopylae. Later, the Cutty Sark became the fastest of the clippers in the Australian wool trade. In 1895, it became the Portuguese Ferreira. It returned to British ownership in 1922. In the following years, it was moored first at Falmouth, in Cornwall, and then at Greenhithe, in Kent, before being removed to Greenwich. It was put on public exhibition in 1957.
In May 2007, a fire broke out on the Cutty Sark, damaging parts of the ship’s decks and hold. The Cutty Sark Trust, a charity group that maintains the ship for public exhibition, had been working on restoring the ship. To make repairs, the group had removed parts of the ship, including the masts, much of the planking, and the coach house. As a result, these parts were spared from the fire. Restoration of the damaged parts was completed in 2012.
