Cutty Sark - Museum Ship

The Cutty Sark was preserved as a museum ship and popular tourist attraction. She is located near the centre of Greenwich, in south-east London, close aboard the National Maritime Museum, the former Greenwich Hospital, and Greenwich Park. She is also a prominent landmark on the route of the London Marathon. She usually flies signal flags from her ensign halyard reading "JKWS", which is the code representing Cutty Sark in the International Code of Signals, introduced in 1857.

The ship is in the care of the Cutty Sark Trust, whose president, the Duke of Edinburgh, was instrumental in ensuring her preservation, when he set up the Cutty Sark Society in 1951. The Trust replaced the Society in 2000[6][7]. She is a Grade I listed monument and is on the Buildings At Risk Register.

Cutty Sark station on the Docklands Light Railway is one minute's walk away, with connections to central London and the London Underground. Greenwich Pier is next to the ship, and is served by scheduled river boats from piers in central London. A tourist information office stands to the east of the ship.

Conservation and fire

On the morning of 21 May 2007 the Cutty Sark, which had been closed and partly dismantled for conservation work, caught fire, and burned for several hours before the London Fire Brigade could bring the fire under control. Initial reports indicated that the damage was extensive, with most of the wooden structure in the centre having been lost.[8]

The Cutty Sark after the fire, now under restoration.

In an interview the next day, Richard Doughty, the chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust revealed that at least half of the "fabric" (timbers, etc) of the ship had not been on site as it had been removed during the preservation work. Doughty expressed that the trust was most worried about the state of iron framework to which the fabric was attached.[8] He did not know how much more the ship would cost to restore, but estimated it at an additional £5–10 million, bringing the total cost of the ship's restoration to £30–35 million.[9]

After initial analysis of the CCTV footage of the area suggested the possibility of arson, further investigation over the following days by Scotland Yard failed to find conclusive proof that the fire was set deliberately.[10]

Aerial video footage showed extensive damage, but seemed to indicate that the ship had not been destroyed in its entirety. A fire officer present at the scene said in a BBC interview that when they arrived, there had been "a well-developed fire throughout the ship". The bow section looked to be relatively unscathed and the stern also appeared to have survived without major damage. The fire seemed to have been concentrated in the centre of the ship.[11] The chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises said after inspecting the site: "The decks are unsalvageable but around 50% of the planking had already been removed; however, the damage is not as bad as originally expected."

As part of the restoration work planned before the fire, it was proposed that the ship be raised three metres, to allow the construction of a state of the art museum space beneath. This would allow visitors to view her from below.[12]

For a long time, there had been growing criticism of the policies of the Cutty Sark Trust and its stance that the most important thing was to preserve as much as possible of the original fabric. The fire damage has been put forth as a reason for the Cutty Sark to be rebuilt in a manner that would allow her to put to sea again by proponents of the idea.[13] However, the Cutty Sark Trust have found that less than 5% of the original fabric was lost in the fire, as the decks which were destroyed were non-original additions.

In addition to explaining how and why the ship is being saved, the exhibition features a new film presentation, a re-creation of the master's saloon, and interactive exhibits about the project. Live webcam views of the conservation work allow the visitor to see remotely the work being carried out on the ship.[14]

Cutty Sark.

The design for the renovation project by Youmeheshe architects with Grimshaw architects and Buro Happold engineers involves raising the ship out of her dry berth using a Kevlar web, allowing visitors to pass under the hull.

Oscar-winning producer Jerry Bruckheimer has aided in the repair and restoration of the Cutty Sark. A collection of photos taken by Bruckheimer went on display in London in November 2007 to help raise money for the Cutty Sark Conservation Project. The exhibition featured more than thirty pictures taken on set during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End[15]

In January 2008 the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the Cutty Sark Trust another £10 million towards the restoration of the ship, meaning that the Trust had now achieved £30 million of the £35 million needed for the completion of the project.[16]

In June 2008, Israeli shipping magnate Sammy Ofer donated the final £3.3 million need to fully restore the ship.[17]

Investigation conclusion

On 30 September 2008, the London Fire Brigade announced the conclusion of the investigation into the fire at a press conference at New Scotland Yard. The painstaking investigation was conducted by the LFB, along with London's Metropolitan Police Service, Forensic Science Services, and electrical examination experts Dr. Burgoyne's & Partners. They said that the most likely cause was the failure of an industrial vacuum cleaner that had inadvertently been left switched on for 48 hours before the fire started.

Physical evidence and CCTV footage of the fire showed that it probably started towards the stern of the ship on the lower deck after the failure of a motor inside the vacuum cleaner, which was being used to remove waste from the ship as part of its renovation programme, and which had been left running throughout the weekend before the fire broke out the following Monday.

On the basis of witness evidence, the joint investigation team considered it unlikely that the fire was caused by the hot work that was being carried out as part of the renovation or by carelessly discarded smokers' materials. The report also reveals that there was no evidence that the ship was subjected to an arson attack and concludes that the fire was started accidentally.[18]