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Cutty Sark ravaged by fire
• Historic tea-clipper left a "blackened wreck"
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By
The Minx, Contributing editor
Monday,
21 May, 2007
The Cutty Sark, the world-famous 19th century tea clipper and an historic relic of the golden age of sail, was engulfed by flames on Monday 21st May 2007.
Firefighters were called to the vessel, closed to the public since last year for a £25m million restoration, shortly before dawn as flames leapt from the decks. "The crew knew it was a severe fire as we got 15 calls within a few minutes," Danny Cotton, a senior officer with the London Fire Brigade, told CNN.
Maureen Taylor, whose home adjoins the Cutty Sark site, said she was woken by a "loud bang". "As soon as I looked out of the window I saw flames and they were high already," she said, adding that she then got her 11-year-old daughter and the family's dogs outside and across the road. "There was ash everywhere in the sky," she said.
Firefighters were called at 4.45am to the ship's dry dock in Greenwich, on the bank of the Thames in south London. They arrived within minutes to find the structure "substantially alight", Ian Allchin, an officer with London Fire Brigade, told reporters at the scene.
The battle to bring the blaze under control was delayed for 45 minutes after fire crews found gas cylinders near the ship and were forced to evacuate nearby residents and make sure no other cylinders were on board.
While some water was directed on to the fire during this period, it was only a "defensive" response, with the "aggressive" fire fighting delayed until the area was deemed safe, Mr Allchin said.
Burnt-Out Hull
The Cutty Sark had been closed since November 2006 and was due to reopen in 2009 after substantial repairs needed because sea salt had speeded up the corrosion of her iron framework. Despite extensive restoration over the years, most of the hull was original. A new exhibition centre opened in April 2007 next to the ship to describe the restoration project to the public.
The mullti-milliion pound project to transform the interior and setting of the ship was about a quarter of the way through and 50% of the ship's planks, the mast, deck houses and captain's cabin had been removed to storage in south-east London.
The fire swept through the entire remaining hull of the ship, which had been covered by a temporary roof, and the skeleton suffered substantial damage. By 0700 GMT, more than 8 fire engines and 40 firefighters had extinguished the blaze, which tore through all three decks but timbers from the burnt out hull of the 19th century vessel were still smouldering. The boat has three decks and two suffered substantial damage.
By 8.30am the fire was out, but fire officers were still directing cooling sprays into the smoking ruins. Little could be seen of the ship itself except the white bow still sticking out towards the river, the woodwork around it was a blackened mess. The smell of burning remained despite a breeze. Helicopters hovered overhead as police maintained the barriers sealing off Greenwich town centre.
The building housing the Cutty Sark conservation project was gutted, with nothing left but a skeleton of blackened iron girders surrounding the ship. The white museum building, which resembles a hedgehog, was untouched except for a light dusting of ash.
Now only one clipper from the same period is left intact - the City of Adelaide, built in 1864 and currently housed at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Ayrshire, which had been due for demolition. The City of Adelaide was built in 1864 and, like Cutty Sark, combines a cast iron frame with a wooden hull. Later renamed The Carrick, the clipper is currently housed at the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, Ayrshire butis to be demolished shortly as its retoration would be uneconomic.
Fire's impact on Iron Frame Critical
Chris Livett, chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises, said that although the ship's decks were "unsalvageable", half of the timbers and all historic artifacts on board had been removed for the conservation project. Its masts were currently on display at the Chatham dockyard in Kent.
Repair work is being carried out on the timber frame holding the ship up and it is not yet safe to examine the extent of the damage onboard. “We fear that some of the iron work may have been warped. I can see significant buckling on some of the frames holding the deck up,” Mr Livett said.
"The boat was built for the China tea service - to be able to smell the burning timber and rope is extremely sad," Mr. Doughty told the BBC News website. "The tragedy is you can't remake the fabric of the boat - these are timbers that were growing during the Battle of Agincourt [in 1415]. History itself has been lost. The renovation programme has been shot to pieces."
"The principle significance of the ship is its shape," he said. "This is formed by the iron frames. If they have been seriously damaged, it's going to be very hard to conserve the ship in the way we had planned. I have been planning this for six years - it was the next chapter in the history of the most famous ship in the world."
On a more positive note Renovation project manager Joseph James, of management consultant Hornagold & Hills, also told the BBC News website the ship's timbers would be salvageable.
Appeal for Funds
The renovation project was due for completion in the summer of 2008. It had received £13m from the Heritage Lottery foundation and almost £6m from corporate and private donations, but there was still a £7m gap to close, according to Richard Doughty, the project director and chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust.
Mr Livett was hopeful the vessel could be fully restored, although there was now a question mark over funding. "I do not think we can give a figure on how much this damage has cost," he told CNN. "We're in dire straits now." He added: "This ship has been through many things in its life, it's sailed through the oceans and been through many natural disasters and survived. We're devastated. Lots of people on this project worked very hard and to see that effort go up in smoke is very hard."
Mr Livett said the blaze had made them more determined to complete the project to restore the much-loved clipper to her former glory and appealed to the public to help pay for the damage. "The Cutty Sark has always needed money since the day she was built - even more so today," he added. "The old girl needs more help than ever she did do in the past."
Update: By the end of May £500,000 had already been raised in the public appeal for funds to repair the fire damage
Was it Arson?
The cause of the blaze was under investigation, fire officers told reporters. The fire is reported to have been started in the hold and was well underway when the first reports came in to the Fire Service. Police said an initial examination of CCTV footage showed people, and a silver car, near the ship around the time it apparently caught fire. However, their presence was not necessarily being linked with the blaze.
The Fire Service was being guarded about the causes - there have been several fires at major restoration projects in recent years where the cause has been traced to a spark igniting wooden structures which were being treated with highly inflammable preservatives.
"At the moment we are treating the fire as suspicious, as we would for any fire of this scale and intensity," Inspector Bruce Middlemiss, from Greenwich police, told reporters. "There is no indication to lead us to believe that this is arson."
Asked whether he thought the fire was suspicious, Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust replied: "I find it hard to believe that anything we've done could have set the ship alight. There isn't anything electrical at the heart of where the fire started. I can't think of anything there apart from wood and metal."
Update May 23 2007 - Arson evidence inconclusive
"The forensic examination of the remains of the Cutty Sark has finished and proved inconclusive as to the cause of the fire which devastated the historic ship, police have said.
"A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "The forensic examination was carried out jointly between the Metropolitan Police Service, London Fire Brigade, the Forensic Science Service and a specialist forensic company employed by the Cutty Sark Trust's insurers.
"Greenwich Police continue to make inquiries and view CCTV footage from around the area. At this stage, we have no major leads and inquiries continue."
He added that anyone who was in the area at the time of Monday's blaze, or has any information regarding it, should contact Greenwich CID on 020 8284 9416."
Want to know about the Cutty Sark?
Follow our links to find out more about the ship's history.
The Naked Reader 2007
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