Please Note :- Most images are linked to larger versions. None are © to the best of my knowledge. My thanks to all the OWs that have collected or supplied their own pictures at various times. OWs feel free to plunder. Other people please ask. Please tell me if you would like your picture removed from the site or credited.

The Cutty Sark

The Cutty Sark arrived alongside the Worcester on Friday, 18 June 1938, having left Falmouth, after a short refit, on Wednesday, 15 June.  

Her ownership was transferred to the President of the Cutty Sark Trust, H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh, on 28 May 1953 and she finally

left her moorings on 18 February 1954 for passage to the East India Dock to await her permanent docking at Greenwich.   During her time

alongside the Worcester she was absent from her moorings on two occasions :-

Between 28 February and 08 October 1951, for refit (Survey, minor renovations ad new rigging) at Millwall Docks and attendance at

"The Festival of Britain" at Deptford; and 30 January and 11 March 1952, following a collision between m.v. "Aquiety" and "Cutty Sark" when

she was taken for repair to Messrs. Green & Silley Weir's yard at Shadwell Basin.

Info Supplied by Graham Smith AOW

More Info.

The Cutty Sark is the most famous tea clipper built, and is the only one to survive. She is now in dry dock at Greenwich.

She was launched at Dumbarton on the River Clyde, Scotland, in 1869. The name comes from Robert Burns' poem, Tam O'Shanter; Tam meets a group of witches, most of whom are ugly, but for Nannie, who is young and beautiful and is described as wearing only a "cutty sark", i.e., a short chemise or shirt. The ship's figurehead is a representation of this witch.

The Cutty Sark's sleek lines and enormous area of sail made her the fastest ship in the race via the Cape of Good Hope for the then particularly money-spinning tea trade with China. Unluckily for her owners, the Suez Canal was opened in the same year as her launch, which is not navigable by sailing ships. Her last cargo of tea was carried in 1877.

Later, from 1885 to 1895, she was used in the wool trade with Australia, bringing the new season's clip from Sydney to London, setting new speed records year after year.

By 1895, she was again losing money for her owner and was sold to the Portuguese as the Ferreira, although interestingly enough her crews called her Pequina Camisola ('little shirt'). She was worked by her new owners between Oporto, Rio, and Lisbon for over thirty years until 1920, when she was sold again, this time becoming the Maria do Amparo. In 1922 she underwent a refit in the Surrey Docks, London, and was driven to shelter from a storm in Falmouth harbour on her way home. A Captain Wilfred Dowman saw her there, and bought her from the Portuguese owners, returning her to British ownership again.

On Capt. Dowman's death in 1938, his widow presented her to the Thames Nautical Training College at Greenhithe on the Thames, where she was used as a training vessel. After the Second World war she again became surplus and eventually she was towed to Greenwich and placed in a specially constructed dry dock in 1954. After a lot of restoration work she was opened to the public in 1957. Since then more than thirteen million people have visited her.

Cutty Sark at Greenhithe. Considerable Artistic Licence

Cutty Sark in East India Dock London

Cutty Sark and Thermopylae by Francis Smitherman

Cutty Sark by Jack Spurling 1870 - 1933

Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark

Someone said somewhere that the Cutty Sark would never have survived after being rescued from Falmouth and looked after by the Worcester until she went to Greenwich in 1954. The Nation owes a dept of gratitude to Worcester for helping her to survive.

23

Clippers Ariel & Taeping