Tea Clippers and timelines

A few days in London allowed us to see some more sights of London.  We made a beeline for the Cutty Sark museum in Greenwich.  Lucy grew up under a painting of this majestic Clipper and despite having seen it when she was 6, she was very keen to see it again.  She (the Cutty Sark and not Lucy) was launched in 1869 and was one of the fast Clipper ships built for the tea run from China to London.  Once steam (and the Suez Canal) displaced the sailing vessels, she was used to transport wool from Australia amongst other things.  Strangely, this is where she set the most records even though she is primarily known as a Tea Clipper.  She eventually was used by a Portuguese firm to transport goods until 1922 when she was restored to her original rig and eventually in the 50's was opened to the public as a museum ship and as a memorial to the Merchant Navy in her own custom built dry dock.
Sadly, by 2006 her hull was starting to deteriorate and so a major restoration was undertaken.  In 2007, while Geoff was in the UK, there was a major fire on board in which most of the ship was destroyed, although luckily the rigging, deck and above deck cabins had all been removed for the renovation. They have done an amazing job restoring her and she is now supported in a floating position with a glass roof at her waterline and her slick lines are clearly visible.  She really is beautiful once again!

The beautiful Cutty Sark

The deck has been restored as it would have been as a sailing ship.

"Aye-aye Cap'n"

The supports holding the boat in the dry dock

The copper plating below her waterline has been replaced and it looks really good. (Copper plating was apparently better at fouling barnacles than any paint that they had in those days.)

Find out more of her history at www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark


Next stop was the Royal Observatory where we were really looking forward to seeing Harrison's clocks. [For those of you who haven't read the bulk Longitude by Dava Sorbell, its well worth it.  The book tracks the challenge set out to invent a way of measuring longitude to aid navigation - before then navigation was kind of a shot in the dark unless you followed the land all the way.  John Harrison developed a timepiece that could keep accurate time and eventually won the prize.]  His clocks allowed accurate navigation (well, accurate tools) whereby a boat's position could now be placed within 1 mile of its actual position.
We were lucky enough to join one of the free guided tours and our tour leader was passionate and informative and told us the story while pointing out navigation aids and time pieces (as opposed to just talking about each thing we came across).  We found it fascinating and a great day out.

H1 - the first clock that Harrison built to win the Longitude Challenge

H4 - a pocket sized timepiece that eventually won the award and changed navigation for ever!  It cost 500GBP at the time - more than any ships captain would be able to afford.

Greenwich meridian