What should we do with the Cutty Sark?
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At the end of last year, Professor Peter Mason, chief engineer on the £40 million Cutty Sark conservation project, resigned over 'damaging' plans to raise the ship 11ft (3.3m) into the air. The flames of her disastrous fire in 2007 may have died down, but the arguments surrounding the fate of the iconic clipper ship, one of only two of her type left in the world, rage on. A debate as old as Christ has been re-opened.
In a country so seemingly un-enchanted by its maritime past, the press blitz unleashed on 21 May 2007, when the Cutty Sark went up in flames, came as a surprise. I stood around the next day, with the rest of the press, in a thin drizzle that had come too late and too light to douse the flames. Was it arson? the papers asked. Compressed gas? What about those two men with the silver car? Soon enough though, it was back to Madelaine McCann who’d only recently vanished, and by the time Northern Rock collapsed later that year, everyone had forgotten about a burnt boat. After all, as the trust had told the papers at the time, the real treasure was in storage at Chatham, and the only material lost in the fire was not original anyway. Great: except that it wasn’t entirely accurate. I had been on the boat just the week before, shown around by Richard Doughty, director of the Cutty Sark Trust, who told me that most of the stuff in storage was rigging added in the 1950s when the boat was first moved to her concrete dry dock.
By the time the Evening Standard discovered the truth behind the fire in 2008, no one seemed to notice. Someone had left the hoover on – and while it got hotter, the nightwatchman, who was supposed to be on duty, was asleep in the local café, his face embedded in the pages of the Bible he’d been reading: Christianity was a faith he’d discovered quite late in life, so perhaps he was making up for lost time.
At the time, I wrote that the fire was a chance to re-evaluate the ship’s future. Forget these ridiculous plans to raise the ship 11ft (3.3m) in the air and turn it into a concert venue and café. Instead we should rebuild it, like for like, plank for plank, and then set out to sea again. The ship could be moored for most of the year just yards away on the Thames, remaining accessible to her 166,000 visitors a year, and she could also make a grand annual tour, introducing urban east-London kids to the glory of sail and the value of pulling together as a team. How about doing for 2012 as well? The ship represents internationalism, trade and competition; the wool and tea trade of the late nineteenth century was essentially a race between ever-more beautiful and faster clipper ships. How about a sky exploding with fireworks as a newly-built Cutty Sark sailed through an open Tower Bridge to open the Olympic Games? 'I will never lead the trust down that road,' director Richard Doughty told me. For the Cutty Sark to return to sea, it would have to be substantially rebuilt – no one argues with that. She would not, Doughty maintained, be the Cutty Sark any more.
A lot of us wondered whether a ship/café/concert hall on legs would be the real Cutty Sark either. Materially yes – but ships like this were designed to be rebuilt bit by bit over the years – and the Cutty Sark is no exception: ‘original’ means any material that remains from her days as a trading vessel – in other words from her build in 1869 to 1922. Robert Wyld, the last man to helm the grand clipper under sail, would see her return to her element. Julian Harrap, a man who’s restored and designed buildings and boats, including Brunel’s SS Great Britain and recently, with David Chipperfield, the Neues Museum in Berlin, would see the rebuilding – in steel if necessary, but to the same design. The alternative made little sense. £40 million – to spend on a boat that will continue to sit in a dry dock? And wait to go rotten under London’s acid rain, so the trust would have to return, cap in hand, in a few decades to ask for more money?
The discussion is one of the oldest known to philosophy. It is 'Theseus’s Ship’ or more colloquially, as ‘Grandad’s Axe’. Put simply, the axe has had 12 new blades and 20 new handles: but it’s still grandad’s axe. The jetliner you’ll take your next flight on might well be a high-tech grandad’s axe. Many older jets have had so many parts replaced that none of the original remains. But you won’t drop from the sky because of it. It is defined by its purpose: to fly through the sky, just as the Cutty Sark is defined by her purpose; to sail through the ocean at great speed (up to 20mph), all sails straining, using nothing but the power of the wind.
Originality, authenticity and uniqueness present a tricky challenge to our concept of identity. Plutarch described the situation with a story. A man, Theseus, takes his boat to a yard for repair. The yard start work, and the more they do, the more they discover is rotten. They end up replacing the whole ship, plank by plank and when Theseus returns, he’s happy with a job well done, and sails off into the sunset. In the pragmatically-titled 'Continuity and Discontinuity, Change and Duration', Thomas Hobbes refined the argument in the late 1600s, by asking the following question: what if another boat had been built with the material discarded from the first? Which would be the real one? There is an argument to be made for each: but for me there is no argument about which would be the better one, and the one to crystallise the vision of its maker for future generations to behold.
The argument is, in a nutshell, one between purpose and substance. Which is the more interesting, the more worthwhile to preserve? It seems that almost anyone who goes to sea and values its cultural heritage would favour purpose, and in this sense, boats (and cars for that matter) are different to buildings. It is reasonable to preserve most of a building, as they are not subject to the constant pounding and corrosive salt water. The thinking these days is to preserve the old where reasonable to do so and put in new where it’s needed, clearly differentiated to show the visitor what’s old and what’s now. With furniture, it’s different again: if you buy, say, a Hepplewhite or Chippendale chair, you can rest assured that with the exception of a re-machined screw here and a touch up there, it’s the same thing that was built in the 1700s – or whoever sold it to you has broken the law.
The trouble on the Cutty Sark didn’t really start with the fire. It started when, sometime in 2004/5, architect Nicholas Grimshaw decided to lift the boat up into the air on metal legs, to enable visitors to admire the ship’s slender mackerel-shaped hull from beneath. And, avoiding the unthinkable idea that the boat might actually float on the ocean, he insisted most of her original timber would remain intact. The next firm of architects on board were similarly far removed from the sea and from the start there has been no naval architect or experienced boatbuilder in any executive position on the project. The boat’s status as a Grade-I listed building seems to have done it more harm than good.Late last year, the University of Greenwich concluded, after a long finite element analysis on the ‘boat on legs’ plan, that raising Cutty Sark into the air would place much more stress on the hull than previously imagined. Imagine an elephant on a bed of nails and you can see the problem. It would result in a Cutty Sark that is not original in terms of material construction, shape or purpose.
It looks more and more likely that the Cutty Sark we will end up with, after the £40 million has been spent, will be not Theseus’s ship, but Hobbes’s ship, a new boat built from old planks. There might still be an argument as to which is the ‘real’ one. But if I were Theseus, and I’d paid for the job to be done – I know which one I’d rather sail off into the sunset in.
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14 comments
Rebuild the Cutty Sark in a sea worthy condition to the original design and another clipper-ship, how about the Thermopylae. Then let the millionaire yachtsmen of the world race them to Australia and back. Let's see if they can match or better Captain Woodget's times. The greatest sailing contest of all time without burning an ounce of fossil fuel.
If we had the chance to rebuild the Library of Alexandria would we quibble about the cost? If we had a chance to talk to the builders of Stonehenge would price be a barrier? The Cutty Sark is the last clipper to be built as a merchant vessel. Is she state of the art? Or could we build a sailing ship of the same capacity that was faster still? The World Cup of sustainable transport ship building?
Yes what has happened to my earlier comment - I've been censored! My comment must have been too close to the truth for someone's comfort.
We call it "over engineered" today. The Cutty Sark, a daughter of the Clyde, was built to a sublime design by Hercules Linton and to such exacting standards demanded by Captain John "Jock" "White Hat" Willis that the shipyard Scott and Linton went bankrupt at her construction. Launched on November 22 of 1869 it would take Cutty Sark ten years before she found the right master Captain Richard Woodget. He went on to prove himself a virtuoso at getting the last ounce of performance from his men and the Cutty Sark. She was state of the art and could be driven harder with more sail in heavier winds than any other ship of her type. Cutty Sark posted Australia-to-Britain times of as little as 67 days, and in one instance outsailed the fastest steamship there was then, RMS Britannia. "Weel done, Cutty Sark!"
Having worked on the Cutty Sark, I can’t resist adding my thoughts. There are some appealing ideas in Steffan’s column, but I have to say that a rebuild back to sea worthiness is unfortunately not practical. Having spent weeks on end digging out the concrete ballast, added when it was a training ship I believe, I know the condition of the framework and planking too well. Trying to put this old girl back in the water would honestly be less dignified than the ‘up in the air’ plan! A complete replica would have to be the way forward, but that still leaves the problem of the original ship.
In my opinion the right way would be to remove any planking and framework that’s beyond saving, replacing with obviously new, so as to give contrast between the repair and original. This could be in the form of unpainted planking (just oiled), and unpainted steel frames. This seems such an honest, dignified solution, probably costing a quarter of the current budget, the rest of which could be ploughed into maritime education or the likes. This also has the advantage of utilising traditional boatbuilding skills, and not endlessly filling the pockets of architects and engineers, who as far as I can tell mince around endlessly with badly though out ideas, getting rich in the process.
Have you seen today's Telegraph - things at the Cutty Sark are worse than anyone hitherto has let on - see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7173900/Cutty-Sa rk-restoration-turning-into-a-fiasco.html
Sending the Cutty Sark out to sea would be a great loss to Greenwich and to London, as George Moodie says. Not on, surely!
Great - with £45m we can re-float the Cutty Sark and sail it on the Thames – what a romantic idea. Now – down to the practicalities of that fine idea. Once we have rebuilt it – as it was in the 1800’s we need to find a crew, as a ship needs a crew, and a trained crew won’t be cheap. But before we get to that, we will ne to get it out of the dry dock, any ideas?
Lift it is idea 1, but we can’t do that, as to lift it you would need to strengthen the hull, and that wasn’t present originally. So that idea is scrapped.
Float it out. Brilliant, we can do that. So we could make a trench from the dry dock to the Thames and wait for the tide to rise up a bit, possibly leave the Thames flood barrier down for the day? Anyone got a spare £10m, may be £20m to do that little building job? (I am sure the people that own properties along the Thames would be over the moon about the Thames flood barrier being left open, give them some sandbags, they will manage.)
So, we now have the Cutty Sark on the Thames, where do we find the crew and how much do it cost to run. Now also, we will have to refit the dry dock into a real dock so the ship can tie up for the night, anyone got another £20m.
Now, in the summer – great the ship is floating up and down the Thames, every one is happy – how much should we charge and how long should the little jaunt up the Thames be, mind you, you wont see much, it’s is a Clipper it wasn’t built with any portholes – we could always fit some………..no we couldn’t could we.
Now it is winter, the Tourists have left Greenwich for the season, how to we keep the Clipper running – hang one the Local Authority or Government could pay for it couldn’t they……………..
I could go on if you want.
Another brief thought – with al of this work to the dock going on – what about the Star of India?
With the investment put towards the Clipper, instead of criticising the plan you should get behind it. Any work that means the Clipper will stay with us for another 60 years is great news. Anything we can do to capture the interest of a child that has never seen a ship light it before is, again, brilliant news. Come on – support the plan.
p.s. Steffan Meyric Hughes – you are talking unfounded rubbish – generally.
I agree w Jane Chisholm - where is Yomi's comment? I also think it woudl be fab if Time Out had some more of these types' of blogs and articles (on subjects of substance), rather than all the celebrity stuff it seems to have taken to publishing of late! I hope this is the beginning of a new wave.
What happened to the posting from Yola Dragon? That seemed to come from someone who knew what was really going on. Has s/he been censored and if so why?
I have visited the Cutty Sark on numerous occasions and have always been impressed by her majesty. It not often that
we can step back into the past as we can with this beauty.
Please bring this Old Girl back to her former glory. God knows
we have enough cafés. ( Tell me where you came from &
I will show you where you are headed ) still holds true.
Ron
Thanks for your encouraging comments, particularly Yola Dragon: you have a very good grasp of what's going on here, but as I understand it, the amphitheatre idea has been dropped, as has the lift, thank God - though I am not certain about this. I'm delighted that everyone seems to understand that a boat belongs (at least part of the time) at sea, and that boats are NOT like buildings, or furniture in terms of restoration/conservation. I believe a replica Cutty Sark could be made of steel, incorporating all the original salvageable parts like deck furniture etc, for around £15 million. The change could go into preserving some of the original timbers in a small, dedicated museum, (a la Mary Rose) and turning the rest into staggeringly expensive furniture and souvenir key-rings to go towards the ship's future.
Bit ofa disasteranyway.Wheredoes therecession fit in? If it wasbombednothing more could bedone about it!
If i was paying for the job i would want it to be restored to its former glory as a ship on water in its natural settings not 11ft up in the air.
A very interesting blog. I think it is a grave shame that we have not heard more about this subject and this historic ship.