Under the respected Captain Richard Woodget, she did very well, posting Australia-to-Britain times of as little as 67 days. Cutty Sark was then used on the Australian wool trade. In the end, clippers lost out to steamships, which could pass through the recently-opened Suez Canal and deliver goods more reliably, if not quite so quickly, which proved to be better for business.
Her legendary reputation is supported by the fact that her captain chose to continue this race with an improvised rudder instead of putting into port for a replacement, yet was only beaten by one week. However, she did not distinguish herself in the most famous race, against Thermopylae in 1872, both ships left Shanghai together on June 18th, but two weeks later Cutty Sark lost her rudder after passing through the Sunda Strait, and arrived in London on October 18th, a week after Thermopylae, a total passage of 122 days. She was designed by Hercules Linton and built in 1869 at Dumbarton, Scotland, by the firm of Scott & Linton, for Captain John "Jock" "White Hat" Willis Scott & Linton was liquidated, and she was launched November 22nd of that year by William Denny & Brothers.Ĭutty Sark 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. 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 idiom. She was wearing a linen cutty sark that she had been given as a child, therefore it was far too small for her. This was the nickname of the fictional character Nannie (also the name of the ship's figurehead) in Robert Burns' 1791 comic poem Tam o' Shanter. The ship is named after the cutty sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment). She is preserved in dry dock at Greenwich in London, but was damaged in a fire on while undergoing extensive restoration.
Built in 1869, she served as a merchant vessel (the last clipper to be built for that purpose), and then as a training ship until being put on public display in 1954.
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