http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/news/world/20070521-cutty-sark-lon don.html
Suspicious fire on historic ship >From correspondents in London May 21, 2007 05:06pm Article from: Agence France-Presse THE Cutty Sark, the world's last remaining tea clipper and one of London's tourist attractions, went up in flames in a suspicious fire today. The BBC and Sky News showed aerial images of remains of the charred ship, which had been engulfed in flames. The boat-museum, under reconstruction and due to reopen in 2009, caught fire about 4.45am (1.45pm AEST). Firefighters had been concerned gas canisters on board for repair work could explode. Cutty Sark Enterprises chairman Chris Levett said that while the ship's decks were "unsalvageable", the damage did not appear as bad as originally feared. He said that half of the planking, as well as all the historic artefacts on board, had been removed for the conservation project and he was confidence the ship could be fully restored. "It will be the old ship. The ship has been through many things in its lifetime. It has sailed the oceans of the world, it has battled with nature through its life," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today program. "This is going to make us even more determined to get this ship back up and running and keep her as original as possible." Cutty Sark Trust chief executive Richard Doughty said he was told the blaze was being treated as suspicious and called it a tragedy. "When you lose the original fabric, you lose the touch of the craftsmen. You lose history itself," he said. "What is special about Cutty Sark is the timber, the iron frames, that went to the South China Sea. To think that is threatened in any way is unbelievable. It is an unimaginable shock." The only remaining tea clipper, the Cutty Sark made its first voyage in 1870, and is one of the most famous ships in the world. Sky News earlier showed amateur footage of massive flames climbing towards the sky. No one was reported injured in the fire, police said. Residents were evacuated and taken to a Greenwich hotel, Scotland Yard said. The ship has been in dry dock in Greenwich since 1954. The 137-year-old Cutty Sark, was given a £11.75 million ($28.21 million) National Lottery grant for a restoration project that would see the vessel being lifted 3m. The ship was said to be in a serious state of deterioration before it was closed in November for the work. A glass "bubble" was also going to be attached at the ship's waterline to give year-round protection to visitors in the dry berth and to the lower hull itself. The Cutty Sark was originally used to deliver tea from China in the 1870s. Built 1869 by Scott & Linton, Dumbarton, the Cutty Sark is the sole surviving extreme clipper, designed to be very fast. She was one of the last tea clippers built, but as this trade was taken over by the steamers using the Suez Canal, she turned to general trading including transporting wool from Australia. It was during this time that she made her legendary fast voyages. Captain Dowman of Falmouth decided she should be preserved and in 1922 bought the ship and made her part of a floating nautical school he was operating. In 1938, his widow presented the ship to the Thames Nautical Training School at Greenhithe. They maintained the ship until 1952 when the Cutty Sark Preservation Society was formed under the leadership of Frank Carr, director of the National Maritime Museum, and the patronage of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. The ship was permanently installed in a stone dry-dock at Greenwich on the Thames, and fully restored to her appearance as an active sailing vessel. . <http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=11648958/grpspId=1705447214/msgI d=33226/stime=1179752846/nc1=3848620/nc2=3848642/nc3=3848541> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? 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