THE CUTTY SARK

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22101, 3 November 1933, Page 6

THE CUTTY SARK

A LINK WITH BURNS RESTING PLACE AT FALMOUTH. A link with Burns is provided by the Cutty Sark, writes H. V. Morton in an article in the Daily Herald on Falmouth. This famous sailing ship—perhaps, with the exception of the old Victory, the most famous old ship in British waters —is one of the sights of Falmouth. She lies anchored, trim as a racehorse, in Falmouth Harbour, and on most days of the week you can row out to her and go aboard. It is not generally known, I think, that the famous tea clipper takes her name from a line in Burns’s poem, “ Tam o’ The word “ cutty ” is Scots’ vernacular for short, and “ sark ” means a shirt, or shift. The figurehead of the Cutty Sark shows a rather robust female apparently in the act of flight, dressed in a short shift. I climbed aboard the Cutty Sark by means of a swaying ladder, and a sailor explained her past and present history to me. “ She was built at Dumbarton, on the Clyde,” he said, “in 1869, and she was launched a year after. Her first owner was ‘Jock’ Willis, of Eyemouth, in Berwickshire, a famous London ship owner in those days, and the owner of many a ship that made history. ' He built her to race to China'for cargoes of tea, and to race back again. Look at her! v Everything built for speed. She’s got the line of a yacht. Her deck is made of teak, and her three masts were made to carry as much sail as a ship twice her tonnage. Nothing more beautiful was ever turned out by a shipyard. ” His eyes lit up as he looked at her, and I knew that he had served in sailing ships. “The reason she was built like this,” he went on, “was to compete with steam. Just at the beginning of steam navigation the old shipbuilders thought that they could fight the new ships with speed. And the Cutty Sark was a sensation. A tea clipper had to be a flier in the old days, and she often carried too much canvas for safety. But for grace, beauty, and speed nothing has ever equalled the Cutty Sark. ...” As we looked over the lovely racer 1 observed that everything was made for speed and cargo. The sleeping quarters of the crew were mere boxes, but then 1 suppose there was not much time for sleep on a tea clipper! Her hold was enormous. . The Cutty Sark was for years victorious in many of the famous tea races. She reached London from Hankow in 95 days. One of her famous races was with another tea clipper, the Thermopylte. They left Shanghai together and raced neck-to-neck down the China Sea, In a week or ten days the Cutty Sark was fjeveral hundred miles ahead of her rival. Then a terrific gale sprang up. The Cutty Sark lost a lot of canvas and her rudder. At great risk of life a “ jury ” or temporary rudder, made of spars lashed together, was fixed up; and on she raced. Although several days had been lost, the Cutty Sark sailed up. the Thames only 119 days after leaving her China port. When the tea races ended she took part in the Australian wool trade. But steam was winning, although the Cutty Sark on one occasion passed the P. and 0. mailboat, the Britannia, at a,steady 17 knots, and reached Sydney four hours ahead of her. '

Humiliation and, eventually, romance were in store for this famous ship. In 1895 she was sold to a Portuguese firm. Her name was changed to Ferreira, and for 14 years she disappeared. Then, like a vision of the old days, she suddenly appeared in the Mersey in the first year of the war. She was rather a pitiful sight. She was no longer the trim, beautiful pride of the China Sea. Her sails were ragged, her paint was blistered, her brass was tarnished, and her name was Ferreira. But every ancient sailor who saw her gazed with astonishment: “Why, there’s the Cutty Sark! ” There was no mistaking such a ship. “And the end of it was, said my guide, “ that Captain Downman, of Falmouth, who once skippered a windjammer, bought her from the Portuguese, repainted her, reconditioned her, and made her as she used to be. He saved her life. She is now a training ship for boys who want to enter the mercantile marine. That is Captain Downman’s hobby. Could the Cutty Sark go to sea again? Certainly she could! She’s as good as ever she was, but—where would you find the crew to sail her? ” So the Cutty Sark, with the Red Ensign once more at her peak, lies in honourable retirement in Falmouth Harbur. • She lies there like a pensioned racehorse. Now and then a grain ship from Australia sails in to Falmouth, and the Cutty Sark is said to tremble all over like an old hunter who hears hounds.