Clippership CUTTY SARK Running Before the Wind

oil, 22” x 36"

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Cutty Sark is perhaps Britain’s most famous clipper ship. Built on the River 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.

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. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, 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 was transferred to Greenwich, London, where she is on public display today.

Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships. She is one of only three remaining original composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) clipper ships from the nineteenth century. She is seen in this dramatic painting as she would have appeared in the open ocean on one of her record runs, the truly classic ‘Clipper Ship’ painting.