Cutty Sark Is Launched (1869)
The tea trade in the 1860s and 70s was intensely competitive, with merchant ships racing to be the first to arrive in London with that year’s crop from China. It was for this purpose that the three-masted clipper Cutty Sarkwas originally built. She became one of the swiftest and most celebrated British clippers, but within a few years of her launch, steamships had largely supplanted clippers in the tea trade, so she began carrying other cargos. What is the origin and meaning of her name? More… Discuss
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