The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. 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. She is preserved in dry dock in Greenwich, London. However, the ship was badly damaged in a fire on 21 May 2007 while undergoing extensive restoration. The ship will be reopened in Spring 2011. The Cutty Sark is one of only two remaining original cl...
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The Cutty Sark is a clipper ship. 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. She is preserved in dry dock in Greenwich, London. However, the ship was badly damaged in a fire on 21 May 2007 while undergoing extensive restoration. The ship will be reopened in Spring 2011. The Cutty Sark is one of only two remaining original clipper ships from the nineteenth century and the older City of Adelaide (1864).
The ship is named after the cutty sark (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment). This was the nickname of the fictional character Nannie Dee (which is also the name of the ship's figurehead) in Robert Burns' 1791 comic poem Tam o' Shanter. She was wearing a linen cutty sark that she had been given as a child, therefore it was far too small for her. The erotic sight of her dancing in such a short undergarment caused Tam to cry out "Weel done, Cutty-sark", which...
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