I saw this ship before she burned. Most impressive. Glad to see it was restorable.
73 days Sydney To London is amazing under sail
Either leg was always west to east.....every round trip a circumnavigation
The Horn and Roaring Forties never boring
This looks like a great restoration. I'm glad. (My opinion is that UK’s money is better spent on this, than some Obama-like make-work project in the “projects.” At the end of the day you have employed actual working craftsmen and have something worthwhile to show for the effort. Compare vs Solyndra.)
Oldplayer
She was named after Cutty Sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burns' 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter. The ship's figurehead, carved by Robert Hellyer of Blackwall, shows Nannie Dee in a stark white carving of a bare-breasted woman with long black hair holding a grey horse's tail in her hand. In the poem she wore a linen sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment), that she had been given as a child, which explains why it was cutty, or in other words far too short. The erotic sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which subsequently became a well known catchphrase.
I was saddened to hear about the fire several years ago, its great that she has been restored, I have been through that ship as a teen when I lived in the UK for a short while.
The fire was caused by a vacuum cleaner carelessly left running. What a waste.