Cutty_Sark_(ship,_1869)

May 26, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum

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The Cutty Sark History Name: Cutty Sark (1869–1895) Owner: John "Jock" Willis (1869–1895) Ordered: 1 February 1869 Builder: Scott & Linton & Completed by william Denny's Dumbarton Scotland,...

The Cutty Sark History Name: Cutty Sark (1869–1895) Owner: John "Jock" Willis (1869–1895) Ordered: 1 February 1869 Builder: Scott & Linton & Completed by william Denny's Dumbarton Scotland, after the liquidation of her contracted builders, Scott & Linton; preserved in a dry dock at Greenwich, London Cost: £16,150 Laid down: 1869 Launched: 22 November 1869 Sponsored by: Mrs. George Moodie In service: 16 February 1870 Homeport: London (1870–1895) Falmouth (1923–38) Motto: "Where there's a Willis away" Tonnage: 963 GRT Displacement: 2,100 tons (2,133.7 tonnes) at 20 ft (6.1 m) draught Length: Hull: 212.5 ft (64.77 m) LOA: 280 ft (85.34 m) Beam: 36 ft (10.97 m) Propulsion: 32,000 sq ft sail (3000 hp) Sail plan: 1870: ship rig 1916: barquentine rig Speed: 17.5 kn (32.4 km/h) maximum achieved(p196) Capacity: 1,700 tons (1542 tonnes) Complement: 28–35 Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line. She was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development, which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steamships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display. Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet (the nautical equivalent of a Grade 1 Listed Building). She is one of only three remaining original composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) clipper ships from the nineteenth century in part or whole, the others being the City of Adelaide, which arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia on 3 February 2014 for preservation, and the beached skeleton of Ambassador of 1869 near Punta Arenas, Chile.

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