Cutty Sark Ship Model
The name of the Cutty Sark tall ship comes from the short shirt worn by the
flee-footed witch in the Robert Burns Poem, Tam o’Shanter. Designed by
Hercules Linton in Dumbarton, Scotland, the Cutty Sark was launched in 1869.
The Cutty Sark was initially designed and meant for trading tea with China.
Crafted to race across the globe to sack immense profits before other European
traders, the Cutty Sark was built for speed.
In the memorable race between the Cutty Sark and Thermopylae in 1872, the Cutty
Sark lost her rudder after passing through the Sunda Straight and arrived in
London a week after their competitor. What makes the Cutty Sark the hero of
this race was that she continued the race with a makeshift rudder instead of
putting into port for repairs, and in spite of that only lost by a week. Inevitably,
the clipper ships lost out to the more powerful steam boats, which were more
reliable, and thus returned goods more consistently.
The Cutty Sark won the reputation as the fastest ship in her size when she
ran 360 nautical miles in 24 hours during a run for Australian Wool trade. The
Cutty Sark is the world’s sole surviving extreme slipper, with the majority
of her hull fabric surviving from her original construction in the 1860s. The
Cutty Sark is preserved as a museum ship in Greenwich, which is in south-east
London.
Click
on image above to view!
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