Notes

Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.

The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steam ships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years. Improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895, and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman in 1922, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954 she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display. The ship has been damaged by fire twice in recent years, first on 21 May 2007 while undergoing conservation.

Cutty Sark was destined for the tea trade, then an intensely competitive race across the globe from China to London. Though the "premium" or bonus paid to the ship that arrived with the first tea of the year was abandoned after The Great Tea Race of 1866, faster ships could usually obtain a higher freight (the price paid to transport the cargo) than others. Her first round trip voyage under captain George Moodie began 16 February 1870 from London with a cargo of wine, spirits and beer bound for Shanghai. The return journey, carrying 1,305,812 lbs of tea from Shanghai, began 25 June, arriving 13 October in London via the Cape of Good Hope. Cutty Sark sailed in eight "tea seasons", from London to China and back