Cutty Sark

British sailing ship, built in 1869. It was one of the tea clippers that competed in the 19th-century races to arrive with the first cargo of tea from China to Britain.

The name, meaning ‘short chemise’, comes from the witch in Robert Burns's poem ‘Tam O'Shanter’. The biennial Cutty Sark International Tall Ships Race is named after it. The ship was bought and used as a stationary training ship in 1922, then preserved in dry dock at Greenwich, London, in 1954. It was rebuilt in 2007 after suffering extensive fire damage.