A clipper ship rises from the ashes

The Cutty Sark is one of the few surviving clipper ships and the only surviving tea clipper.

Cutty Sark under sail prior to World War I (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

The ship was severely damaged by fire five years ago.

Cutty Sark on fire in May 2007 (image courtesy of the Telegraph)

She was undergoing restoration at the time. Many of her timbers, much of her planking and all three masts had been removed, sparing them from damage by the flames. The fire was later ascribed to a vacuum cleaner that a worker neglected to switch off.

The restoration (now including repairs after the fire) proceeded, but not without controversy. It ran massively over budget (finally coming in at about £50 million, or more than US $80 million); the project's chief engineer resigned in protest at some of the measures being implemented; and there were fears that the ship might be irreparably damaged by plans to raise it above the ground on steel beams, allowing visitors to walk beneath its hull. After changes to the proposed design, this was accomplished, as illustrated below.

Cutty Sark's hull raised above the ground on steel beams (image courtesy of the Telegraph)

The restoration is now almost complete. The ship is scheduled to be reopened to visitors on April 26th.

Cutty Sark in February 2012, with her masts being re-rigged (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

You can see many more images of the ship in a photo gallery published by the Telegraph.

I've had the privilege of visiting the Cutty Sark, many years ago. It's a remarkable piece of history. One of the most surprising things about it (at least to me) was how small the ship is. We're accustomed to thinking of merchant ships as large vessels, but in the age of sail, the concept of 'large' was very different to our own. Cutty Sark is less than a thousand tons GRT, displacing 2,100 tons when fully loaded. Her hull is only a little over 200 feet in length and 36 feet wide at its broadest point, which is tiny by modern standards. The average three-bedroom urban residence today, whether house or apartment, has much more living space (and is much more comfortable) than all Cutty Sark's accommodation, for both officers and crew.

I'm very glad that the ship's been saved for posterity. If you find yourself in England, try to pay her a visit. As you walk her decks, in an age when we take hot or iced tea for granted as an everyday, low-cost beverage, consider that men put their lives on the line aboard her and vessels like her, living in cramped, uncomfortable conditions on dried, salted and otherwise poorly preserved food, working in extremely dangerous conditions when the weather blew up, trying to make the fastest possible passage from China to Europe, bearing tea that was then regarded as a luxury, selling for what we would consider fantastically high prices.

Peter