British national treasure gutted by fire
 

The Cutty Sark is just down the road from me and a very historic ship....very sad morning for this area of London.

--

Cutty Sark ship gutted by blaze

LONDON (Reuters) - The Cutty Sark, thought to be the world's last surviving 19th century tea clipper, was severely damaged in a blaze on Monday, the fire service said.

Flames and thick black smoke shot high into the sky above the dry dock on the banks of the River Thames where the boat has stood for more than 50 years.

Forty firefighters brought the blaze under control. Aerial television pictures showed a mass of charred timbers on the deck of the boat that was once one of the world's fastest ships.

"There is substantial damage," a London Fire Brigade spokesman said. There were no reports of any injuries.

Eyewitness Bruno Mahsoudi described seeing "massive flames" coming from the ship.

The Cutty Sark swapped the high seas for a concrete dry dock in Greenwich, home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), where it became a major tourist attraction.

The ship, launched in 1869 on Scotland's River Clyde to make the run to China for the lucrative tea trade, was undergoing a 25 million pounds refurbishment.

Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, the body overseeing the renovation work said the fire may have been started deliberately.

"All I know is that it is being treated as a suspicious fire at the moment," he told BBC television. "It is just unbelievable. We are losing history."

He said half of the ship's timbers had been removed for renovation before the fire.

Originally designed to last just 30 years, the ship is a rare construction with a wrought iron frame clad in timber.
Photo

Although built for the tea trade, it was switched to fetching wool from Australia to feed England's mills, regularly recording the fastest time for the voyage from Australia to Britain.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNew...utted_by_blaze

http://www.markbourne.com/images/Lon..._CuttySark.jpg

random dude.

yup, that was her ..luckily the mast and and some other bits were off the ship because it was being restored but what was still there is destroyed.

Yup pretty bad saw this when i woke up on BBC so fucked up i remember going to see the ship when i was school man cant believe its not gonna be there !
They reckon it was started on purpose as well so sad ! :mad:

A lovely ship, been there a few times. They'll rebuild it.

That's really sad... :(

Hopefully a replica using all of the salvageable original materials will still be built.

A drink to the Cutty Sark...(who hasn't seen this famous label):

http://whiskyandmore.com/shop/images.../CUTTYSARK.JPG

ADG

Yup, they aren't officially saying it but it is being strongly hinted at. The first weekend I moved to the UK my husband took me to see the Cutty Sark since it is our part of London. So, whenever I see/saw it I associated it with falling in love, etc.

They will try...they had just managed to get enough money to try to restore it and that took ages to get that money. That is why some bits weren't on it because they were off being restored. Now that it is toast if it can be restored at all it won't be the original ship.

Its a shame when this stuff happens you feel like a bit of your own personal histroy goes with it too

Yeah and especially if it was on purpose..you just think of all the human labour that went into building it and then sailing it around the world and helping to build the British Empire..all for some idiot to throw a match.

What she looks like now that the smoke has cleared:

http://www.sjayne.com/boardpics/cutty_sark.jpg