Cutty Sark

Cutty Sark is a nineteenth-century clipper, i.e. a slender and very fast sailing ship with frigate sailing. It stands in a dry dock at the waterfront in Greenwich as a museum ship. It was built in Scotland in 1869. It was used to transport tea from China, which is why it is called a tea clipper. At that time it was the fastest clipper that could swim about 650 km a day.

In 1896, Cutty Sark passed the Portuguese flag. He returned to England in 1923 thanks to Captain Wilfred Dowman, who bought him from the Portuguese. It was a high-profile event that one of the companies used to name the new whiskey grade that was just entering the market, named after a sailing ship.

The name Cutty Sark was taken from the poem of Robert Burns, in which a drunk hero, seeing a witch dancing in a too short shirt, screams "Well done, Cutty-sark", which means a short shirt. The witch goes after him. She manages to catch the tail of his horse, which is why the bow of the sailing ship depicts a witch with a ponytail in her hand.