Cutty Sark Launched: One of the Last Great Clipper Ships
She hit the water without a name plate — workers scrambled at the last second. Built for Jock Willis, a London shipowner obsessed with beating the tea trade's fastest vessels, *Cutty Sark* launched at Dumbarton's Denny shipyard in November 1869. She never actually won the great tea races. But she outlasted every rival. Fires, storms, near-scrapping — she survived all of it. Today she sits in Greenwich, the last of her kind. Speed built her. Sheer stubbornness kept her.
November 23, 1869
157 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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