- It cost £16,150 when it was first built
- The area of all of the sails when out is 32,000 square foot.
- There are 11 miles of rigging altogether.
- The main mast is 153 feet high
- The hull has a copper and zinc alloy on it. This is to keep things like seaweed, barnacles and molluscs away and unable to burrow into the ship. Copper bleeds into the water, and so this stops these creatures from being able to get a grip.
- Cutty Sark was opened twice by Queen Elizabeth II. Once in 1957, and again for its reopening in 2012.
- Cutty Sark held the record for fastest journey from England to Australia for ten years.
- The ship’s motto was ‘When there’s a Willis away’
Who was Hercules Linton?
Cutty Sark was built for a firm of ship owners called Willis & Sons, headed by John ‘Jock’ Willis. His ambition was that Cutty Sark be the fastest ship in the annual race to bring home the first of the new season’s tea from China.
The ship was designed by Hercules Linton, a partner in the Dumbarton firm of Scott & Linton. It is believed that he moulded the bowlines of Willis’s earlier vessel Tweed into the midship attributes of Firth of Forth fishing boats. This created a beautiful new hull shape that was stronger, could take more sail, and be driven harder than any other.
The company had never built a ship of this size before and ran into financial difficulties. They eventually went bankrupt before she was completed. The final details of the fitting out had to be completed by William Denny & Brothers, Scott & Linton’s landlords and the guarantors for the completion of the work on the original contract.
Ship’s flags
Cutty Sark flew signal flags representing the letters J K W S (depicting the name of the owner, JocK WilliS) and from her main mast flew the Willis House flag – blue background with white diamond and red cross in the centre.
Who owned Cutty Sark?
1869-1895 John Willis, Willis & Sons
1895-1922 Ferreira & company
1922-1922 Companhia Nacional ce Navegacao
1922-1938 Captain Wilfred Dowman, Falmouth
1938-1953 The Incorporated Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe
1953-1955 The Cutty Sark Preservation Society
1955-1989 The Cutty Sark Society
1973-1989 The Maritime Trust (managing agents for The Cutty Sark Society)
1989-1990 The Cutty Sark Maritime Trust
1990-2000 The Maritime Trust
2000-2015 The Cutty Sark Trust
2015-current The National Maritime Museum
What was the name given to Cutty Sark in 1895?
When Ferreira and company brought Cutty Sark in 1895 they renamed the ship Ferreira. The ship was renamed again in 1922 when Companhia Nacional ce Navegacao bought it – they named it Maria do Amparo. This ownership was brief however, and Captain Wilfred Dowman brought it back to Britain in 1922, restoring it and giving it its original name.