Trigger’s Broom
The Cutty Sark is going to be reopened to the public on Thursady after a £50m refit and restoration project. A fire destroyed nearly all of it with only a small part of the structure left. Luckily many individual pieces of the ship were stored offsite as the Sark was in the process of being restored when the fire took hold. So pieces such as Cutty Sark figurehead herself and the ships wheel have been saved, but the rest of the ship has been rebuilt from new timber. Now it has been rebuilt using methods as close as possible to the original. But even then the ship was not that original to start with. It’s decks had been replaced in the 1920s and 1950s and the top deck had been replaced many times over during it’s working lifetime. Even the keel is not original.
So how much of the ship is actually original?
SBML
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April 24, 2012 at 10:06 -
How much of you is actually original, considering all your cells are replaced on a regular basis? (That’s not being snarky – just asking, philosophically, how different are you from The Cutty Sark?)
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April 24, 2012 at 14:23
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April 24, 2012 at 10:06 -
Don’t know, don’t care. The setting is smashing and the associated displays are a quick way to learn a great deal.
After all the rubbish we have spent money on it’s nice to finally see a state of the art museum I’d want to visit. I reckon a day spent looking just at the roofs of the new Kings Cross Station concourse, British Museum and Cutty Sark ‘ocean’ are poetry in engineering, and that’s before you’ve looked at a single exhibit.
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April 24, 2012 at 16:16 -
“I reckon a day spent looking just at the roofs of the new Kings Cross Station concourse, British Museum and Cutty Sark ‘ocean’ are poetry in engineering…”
Yes… But probably not worth looking at the exhibits, you will feel as though the whole world is resting on your back, after you have learned how guilty you are for all the sins that you visited on the Africas, the Americas and the Indies.
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April 24, 2012 at 10:11 -
It’s true there is a certain amount of “grandfather’s axe” about any old ship.
But the fact is that the Cutty Sark has been disneyfied, elf n’safety-ised, and disability-ised. You can’t even see the lines any more because of the stupid frame they’ve built around it.
I am so pleased that I went there when it was still a ship – albeit a somewhat dilapidated one. I won’t be going again.
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April 24, 2012 at 10:12 -
Our previous house to this one we christened “the Trigger’s Brush House”
It was built in the 70′s and bought new. Whilst the location and design were great and suited us well, it was cr*p. One got the feeling that the developer’s Purchasing Manager (Maunders – don’t think they’re in business anymore – but if they are Beware!) ‘phoned round his contacts and said “We’re throwing up some houses in XXXXXXXX, what yer got goin’ cheap?
Each time a bit – and some were big bits, like a double garage door – fell off, or rotted (which was monotonously often) when tradesmen came to see the job first reation was always that sucking on a hollow tooth that only workmen can perfect and which conveys more meaning than a well-structured 400 word funding proposal. Second was the comment “Where did they get this from, that’s not a standard size/hasn’t been made for years/ doesn’t comply with…..”
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April 24, 2012 at 10:21 -
Back to Cutty Sark – very unsure about the glass cushion,looks like it sitting in a big bean bag.
The designers of the SS Great Britain display (well worth a visit) did a much better job. There, for those who don’t know it, there’s a glass ceiling/floor? at waterline level. That provides an enclosed weatherproof space where things can happen underneath it and the lines of the vessel can be viewed, but the masterful touch is that water is allowed to overtop the original dry-dock gates and flows over the glass (and is then drained away somehow obviously) I think it produces a great effect.
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April 25, 2012 at 14:24 -
Thanks for pointing out the SS Great Britain – I must go and see it.
For info:
SS Great Britain is taking part in Museums At Night on May 18 & 19. Limited tickets for this event.
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April 24, 2012 at 11:00 -
I wouldn’t knock it. With all the cuts in military spending this could be our future front line of defence: green in that it uses windpower and won’t frighten the dolphins.
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April 24, 2012 at 11:08 -
Can’t help wondering whether for that money, it might have been better to conserve the original in her dry dock, and build a full-size replica and sail her. We’d all have learned far more her that way.
It’s a bit like the heritage railways. It’s great going to a museum and seeing a conserved locomotive or whatever sat there, but you get a far better idea what they were about seeing one in use. Or seeing a stuffed and mounted falcon in a glass case, then seeing one flying in the wild.
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April 24, 2012 at 13:10 -
Yes, quite. Tall ships should be at sea under full sail – and what a wonderful training vessel she would have made.
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April 24, 2012 at 15:58 -
The Cutty Sark has been restored and raised up because the internal iron frame is now badly corroded and too weak to support the weight of the ship. The hull lines can be appreciated better than ever as this link shows.
As for sail training ships, aren’t there enough of those already? And building new wouldn’t guarantee against a Concordia (the other one) type capsize and sinking. Despite “lessons learned” since the Pamir disaster, floating washing lines are inherently unstable.
I would prefer to see other ships preserved instead , eg HMS Plymouth, HMS Illustrious, MV Wincham etc instead of this London-centric – “ooh but it’s a national treasure” technological curiosity. Wouldn’t a “dirty British coaster with salt-caked smoke stack” be just as important to our national heritage?-
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April 24, 2012 at 16:01
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April 24, 2012 at 23:09 -
I think it looks beautiful – and the ship holds a special place in my heart as I visited it when a very young boy with my parents and several times since. I was aghast when I saw it had gone up in smoke. I am delighted to see it rise, phoenix like, from its own ashes… It may be true that bits of it had to be replaced over time but I am equally sure that during its service life bits broke as well and were replaced. What it represents is a part of our history. It would be nice to see more things of this nature preserved, not just, as is often the case, by a group of determined enthusiasts.
Lastly… everyone, I think, universally admires the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight… Does anyone actually think that the aeroplanes that are flown are 1oo% 1939-45 vintage aircraft, all original, unaltered, or do they comprehend that this just could not be possible and, of course, they have been rebuilt, parts replaced where necessary and they are representative of those great aircraft and men and women to whom we owe so much?
£50 million? Seems like a drop in the ocean these days!
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April 25, 2012 at 09:06 -
“£50 million? Seems like a drop in the ocean these days!”
One day’s membership of the European Union…
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April 25, 2012 at 10:50 -
Regarding the BBMF, Lancaster PA474 has had new turrets from 1975 onwards, a new wing main spar in 1975 and a down to bare-metal major servicing in 2006/7. But it’s still got its maker’ data plate so that makes it original as does the similar Hurricane LF363 that was rebuilt after burning out following a crash-landing – but who would trust seventy year old woodwork and canvas on the rear fuselage?
During WW2 many aircraft were repaired and returned to use. The rule was that the fuselage retained its identity when donor parts, wings, tails, etc, from other damaged aircraft were fitted. However, to enable mass production and road transport of components from dispersed factories, fuselages were designed in sections. Thus, a nose or a centre section could be transplanted if necessary. This caused a problem when a Halifax made up of mixture of Bomber Command (brown, green, black camouflage) and Coastal Comand (grey, green, white camouflage) went up for an air test before a repaint and redelivery. A sceptical fighter pilot spotted the aircraft and followed the harlequin Halifax until it landed, fearing a cunning German ruse.
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