Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dumbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, at the end of a long period of design development for this type of vessel, which ended as steamships took over their routes. She was named after the short shirt of the fictional witch in Robert Burns' poem Tam o' Shanter, first published in 1791.
Cutty Sark seen from the north-east
Cutty Sark photographed at sea by Captain Woodget using a camera balanced on two of the ship's boats lashed together
Fine lines of the bow
The ship's figurehead shows Cutty-sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee who chases a drunk farmer, Tam o' Shanter, snatching his horse's tail before he escapes by crossing water.
A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century merchant sailing vessel, designed for speed. The term was also retrospectively applied to the Baltimore clipper, which originated in the late 18th century.
Taeping, a tea clipper built in 1863
Clipper barque Spirit of the Age 1854 by T. G. Dutton
Sovereign of the Seas set the record for world's fastest sailing ship in 1854.
Hornet – an American clipper ship of the 1850s
