Cutty Sark

Last weekend, the extreme clipper ship Cutty Sark burned to the waterline in its display drydock in Greenwich, England. The fire destroyed or damaged two of the three decks of vessel, including original hull timbers that were live trees at the time of the battle Agincourt in 1415. The ship was undergoing extensive renovation, the first since the 1950's, and most of the decking, masts, and other parts were in storage away from the flames. Still, the damage is considerable. The Cutty Sark is the last of her kind, the last clipper ship, the last dinosaur.

In the later half of the 19th Century, American and British shipyards turned out clippers by the score. They traced their lineage to the Anne McKim of Baltimore, one of the earlier "Baltimore Clippers". Based on the lines of Chesapeake Bay craft, these clippers were sharp-lined with minimal drag, low to the water and carried astounding amounts of canvas. The name refers to their ability to "clip the speed from the last inch of wind". These ships were built for speed to carry expensive, perishable cargoes. Early Baltimore Clippers were used as opium runners and slave ships, as well as serving as privateers in the War of 1812; they were usually fast enough to get out of trouble quicker than they got into it.

The Cutty Sark was built as a tea clipper in 1869, sailing from Shanghai and Foo Chow, China to London, around the Cape of Good Hope and up the Atlantic. She was built in a Scottish yard, and named, as were so many Scottish built British clippers, for a Robert Burns poem, in this case, Tam O'Shanter. Her name refers to the short shift or slip worn by a young beguiling witch who tried to get the innocent Tam in her clutches, damning him for eternity. The ship flew a real cutty sark from the top of her main mast for her entire career.

Tea clippers were the true thoroughbreds of the sea, making the 15,000 mile China to London run in 100 days or less. When the clippers ruled the tea trade, there were men yet living who remembered taking over a year to make the same voyage. Tea clippers were the acme of 5,000 years of sailing evolution and were the most complex machines of their day, the 19th Century's equivalent of the Space Shuttle. Cutty Sark's great rival was the extreme clipper ship Thermopylae, built in 1868 in Aberdeen. In 1872, the two ships left Shanghai on the same tide and never lost sight of each other until the Cutty Sark lost her rudder in a storm in the Sunda Straits off Indonesia. Despite having to ship a jury-built rudder (twice), the Cutty Sark raised London only 7 days after the Thermopylae; it was the last time she would lose.

In 1866, three years before the Cutty Sark was built, the greatest of the clipper ship tea races took place. Sixteen clippers left Foo Chow for London. The Ariel and Taeping sailed on the same tide and ran 15,000 miles, neck and neck, to the London docks. The trip took 99 days and 20 minutes for the Ariel, and another 20 minutes for the Taeping. A third ship, the Serica, docked in London within the hour on the same tide and a fourth, the Fiery Cross docked the next day. The captains and crews of the Ariel and Taeping split the prize bonus for the first tea to reach the docks, and a legendary rivalry was born. Taeping won the next year, and in 1868, the Ariel was first by an hour. The Taeping was wrecked in the South China Sea in 1871, and the Ariel went missing a year later. Tea clippers were built for maybe 30 years in service; most lasted for far shorter times. Built to tread the fine line between speed and disaster, many simply vanished at sea.

The Suez Canal opened in 1868 and soon put the tea clippers out of business. Steam ships could carry much larger cargoes, the canal cut the distance by over a third, and the square riggers were effectively barred from the canal since they had to follow the trade winds and the yearly monsoon around Africa. Many clippers were rerigged to reduce sail area and thereby cut the large crew size required to maintain the huge spreads of canvas. They began lives as general cargo tramps, sailing from port to port with no fixed schedules, and picking up such cargoes as were available for delivery to the next port and next cargo.

The Cutty Sark was a relative slow-poke compared to the earlier greyhounds, but found her glory on the Melbourne to London run for the Australian wool trade. The Australian wool trade, with its bounty for the first spring wool to reach the London docks and the English textile mills, was the last gasp for the remaining clippers. Cutty Sark became the undisputed champion of the run, making the passage across the Pacific, around Cape Horn, and up the Atlantic in 73 days in 1885, beating the Thermopylae by a full week. She ruled the run for the next 10 years and became known as the "go to" ship for late cargoes. In 1889, in a feat unheard of, she overhauled and passed a steamship moving at 17 knots.

Cutty Sark was sold out of service, rerigged as a bark to reduce the size of the crew needed to operate and maintain her, and was later bought and restored to her former glory by a wealthy Scottish industrialist to become a museum ship. Her legendary rival Thermopylae suffered a crueler fate: sold to the Portuguese government, she served as a cadet training ship for many years and was sunk for naval target practice in 1907.