Breaking News: London's Cutty Sark On Fire

Sky News ^ | Monday May 21, 2007 | SkyNews

[FreedomCalls]

The preserved 19th-century ship the Cutty Sark is on fire, London Fire Brigade has confirmed. It is said to be 100% alight and eight fire engines are at the scene in Greenwich, south-east London.

Greenwich town centre is closed to traffic and the Docklands Light Railway will also close because of a police cordon, Scotland Yard said.

Local residents were also expected to be evacuated shortly.

The ship, one of the capital's best-loved tourist attractions, is currently closed to the public for extensive renovation work. It was due to reopen in 2009.

There are fears that gas cylinders that may be on board the ship because of the renovation work may explode.

London Fire Brigade said the Metropolitan Police received a call at 04:55am reporting an extensive fire on the 19th-century clipper.

The Clyde-built Cutty Sark was, in 1869, one of the last sailing clippers to be built.

She was destined for the tea trade, then an intensely competitive race across the globe from China to London, with immense profits to the ship to arrive with the first tea of the year.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I know. The convenience of storing flammables used for the restoration on the ship should never outweigh the cost of losing the ship.

I still wonder why they would need gas cylinders stored on board as most metal work would probably be done in shops, away from the ship, to prevent this very thing from happening.

[cva66snipe]

Ding,ding ding ding ding ding ding ding..pause...ding ding... FIRE FIRE FIRE. Class Alpha Fire Main Deck Midship Centerline. Fire Department equip from repair 7.

[shhrubbery!]

Cutty Sark (means "Petticoat"

You could be right, but I think the meaning is closer to "short shirt."

The root word -sark or -serk comes from the Scandinavian/North Germanic invaders of Britain. (IIRC "serk" is still the word for shirt in modern Swedish.)

The word "ber-serk" means un-shirted, or "to fight without one's shirt." Some Viking warriors would strip off their shirts just before battle to show their ferocity and freak out their enemies. Thus they were called "berserkers."

< /etymological ruminations >

[jocon307]

“Hop on a sweaty horse with flaring nostrils while swinging a lantern and spread the word at the top of your lungs!’

LOL!

[skeptoid]

"SHE'S GONE, JIM"

[FreedomCalls]

Possible arson:

Speaking to BBC News the Chief Executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, Richard Doughty, said the fire brigade told him they were treating the fire as suspicious.

[cva66snipe]

I still wonder why they would need gas cylinders stored on board as most metal work would probably be done in shops, away from the ship, to prevent this very thing from happening.

To limit the amount of decks you have to rip up to get the equipment out to work on it. It could have been something else too. Ship spaces that have been closed up for extended periods of time can build up explosive gases in those spaces. When opened and hitting an ignition source a fir is started. Another one you likely won't believe but is true. Spontaneous combustion due to cleaning gear not properly cleaned before being stowed. I went to many a swab fire the night or two following Field Day on the ship. Wax and stripper is the worse. If you don't get it cleaned out of the mop it will catch on fire in a matter of hours.

[skeptoid]

Ahye luuv etimology!

I was just going to ask, and .....

Thanx!!

[Carry_Okie]

The convenience of storing flammables used for the restoration on the ship should never outweigh the cost of losing the ship.

Given the materials used at the time, the whole thing is pretty flammable.

AFIK the British Isles no longer have the kind of oak for timbers it would take to build a ship like that. As for the spars, a late clipper like that probably got its spar materials from North America. Large fine-grained softwood timber is pretty well gone too, let alone the curing and drying techniques used at the time. I could be wrong on the latter as an awful lot of work has been done in recent years to recover that knowledge.

[4woodenboats]

I guess the one good thing is that the masts and spars had already been removed and could possibly be restored.

That could be a very good thing...if she doesn't burn to her waterline. However, it sounds like they're walking away before she explodes. This is a very sad moment in maritime history....

[FreedomCalls]

That could be a very good thing...if she doesn't burn to her waterline.

She's currently in dry dock, so I expect her to burn completely.

[FreedomCalls]

Update:

Ian Allchin from the London Fire Brigade said: "The fire is now well under control.

"There is substantial damage to the ship and we'll be here for several hours."

[4woodenboats]

Thanks for the updates.

[GVnana]

Beautiful ship. Sorry to hear of it.

[redhead]

Cool! Sounds right. I wonder where “petticoat” came from. “Short skirt?” a possible misunderstanding, perhaps. (I love etymological ruminations...My kids think I’m nuts because I’m always doing that. A good understanding of Latin, a little Greek, and a gob of Czech are fun to throw into the mix...)

[nathanbedford]

(2) (Of England and America) ‘Two nations separated by a common language.’

Sometimes the inquirer asks, ‘Was it Wilde or Shaw?’ The answer appears to be: both. In The Canterville Ghost (1887), Wilde wrote: ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language’. However, the 1951 Treasury of Humorous Quotations (Esar & Bentley) quotes Shaw as saying: ‘England and America are two countries separated by the same language’, but without giving a source. The quote had earlier been attributed to Shaw in Reader’s Digest (November 1942). Much the same idea occurred to Bertrand Russell (Saturday Evening Post, 3 June 1944): ‘It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship that the two countries are supposed to have a common language’, and in a radio talk prepared by Dylan Thomas shortly before his death (and published after it in The Listener, April 1954) - European writers and scholars in America were, he said, ‘up against the barrier of a common language’.

Inevitably this sort of dubious attribution has also been seen: ‘Winston Churchill said our two countries were divided by a common language’ (The Times, 26 January 1987; The European, 22 November 1991.)

-----------------------------------------------

Don't feel bad, I thought at first it was Winston Churchill.

[ReignOfError]

Renovations and fires seem to go together. Johnny Cash's old house burned to the ground a few weeks ago.

The plumbing is often shut down for repairs, power tools and temporary wiring (like extension cords) brought in for power tools, temporary lights strung, volatile chemicals brought in to clean and strip paint. Torches brought in for welding and soldering, though I doubt torches were much or an issue on the Cutty Sark.

In the area of more sinister speculation, historic buildings are often on valuable property where someone would like to build something more profitable. Atlanta had a string of fires set in historic buildings by "vagrants setting fires to keep warm" -- I bet if anyone looked hard enough, they'd find that someone had handed a gas can, a gold Zippo and a crisp $50 bill to that vagrant.

[Petronski]

You’re right. It IS Churchill. The others are quoted with statements reflecting the concept, but the quote is Sir Winston.

[dighton]

... separated by a common language ...

It should have been Clemens, “and ne’er the twain shall meet.”

[Fabozz]

The name is from a Robert Burns poem about a man who sees a witch dressed in a too-short nightdress ("cutty" = Scots for short, "sark" = Scots for shirt). He flees and she chases him; he gets away, but not before she rips off his horse's tail. The Cutty Sark's figurehead depicts this witch and holds a tail of horse hairs.