![]() ![]() In 1916 she was dismasted off the Cape of Good Hope, sold, re-rigged in Cape Town as a barquentine, and renamed the Maria do Amparo. In 1895 Willis sold her to the Portuguese firm of Ferreira and she was renamed after the firm. Her best run, 360 nautical miles in 24 hours, was said to have been the fastest of any ship of her size. Under the command of the respected Captain Richard Woodget, she did very well, posting Australia-to-England times of as little as 67 days. The Cutty Sark was then used in 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 as it turned out was 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 this trade in the most famous race, against Thermopylae in 1872, both ships left Shanghai together on June 18, but two weeks later Cutty Sark lost her rudder after passing through the Sunda Strait, and arrived in London on October 18, a week after Thermopylae, for a total passage of 122 days. The Cutty Sark was destined for the China tea trade, at that time 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. She was designed by Hercules Linton and built in 1869 at Dumbarton in Scotland, by the firm of Scott & Linton, for Captain John "Jock" "White Hat" Willis, and launched November 23 of that year. The Cutty Sark is named after the short shirt worn by the fleet-footed witch featured in the poem Tam o' Shanter written by Robert Burns. She now resides at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. She was designed to rival the Thermopylae, one of the finest clippers ever built, which she did for many years. ![]() The Cutty Sark was built at Scott and Lintons yard, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the traffic with the far South East and Africa. ![]()
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