I am mourning the near demise by fire of the Cutty Sark the fastest tea clipper ever to ply the seas between Britain and the Far East. She brought tea from China, and later wool from Australia, home to the waiting buyers at astonishing speeds. The life aboard ship must have been grim for those whose backs were being broken to win the race.
My great grandfather sailed to New Zealand in 1872 aboard the first composite built tea clipper, the Wild Deer. She was Scotland's answer to the American fast clipper designs. This ship was so successful that she was the basis for the design of the Cutty Sark.
Cutty Sark
Of Ships and the Sea
Sing me a song of fine old ships
Of fine old ships and the sea,
With hulls that ply the rolling waves
Like a claymore flying free;
With hulls that ply the rolling waves
And built of wood and steel,
That rise up like a cathedral
From a massive bolted keel.
Sing me a song of hardy men,
Who toil in the shipwright’s trade,
Who bend their backs from dawn ’till dusk
By whom these ships were made.
Who bend their backs with saws and nails,
With red hot bolts and steel,
And build the ships from bilge to deck
On a massive bolted keel.
Sing me a song of men that sail
In ships on the seven seas,
Who ride the waves in storm and gale
And laugh at the ocean’s breeze;
Who ride the waves in rain or shine
In ships of wood and steel,
With hulls that rise like a great church roof
From a massive bolted keel.
From massive bolted keels they rise
These ships of wood and steel,
Built by men who toil all day,
With muscle and sweat and zeal.
Built with the shipwright’s craft and skill
For the lads who sail the seas,
Who ply the foam in a hull for home,
And laugh at the ocean’s breeze.
Wild Deer
This image from the Turnbull Collection in the National Maritime Museum in San Francisco was taken on the day my great grandfather made landfall at Port Chalmers in New Zealand in 1873.
