Type of bind: Hardcover
Label: Brown, Son and Ferguson
Manufacturer: Brown, Son and Ferguson
Page Count: 422
Printing Date: 1925
Publishing house: Brown, Son and Ferguson
Sale Popularity Level: 4248659
Studio: Brown, Son and Ferguson
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers -
After HMS Victory, the Cutty Sark is probably the most Important ship still afloat. Why? Because all the others from her glory days are gone. Many is the time I have studied her features - looking for a clue as to what I have seen underwater on another ship from the same period but now wrecked on some distant shore.
I have extracted my copy of this book (a second edition from 1929) from my own bookshelf in order to produce a review because this ship is now in grave danger of being lost forever. In early 2007 the Cutty Sark caught fire in Greenwich docks where she was undergoing repairs. Fortunately (if such is the right word!), her own figurehead, masts, spars, rigging and deck fittings had been removed and are safe. Nevertheless, the repair bill is still estimated at 17 million British pounds. The Cutty Sark Trust of London are raising funds from every corner imaginable, but it is a difficult task.
The Cutty Sark was launched in 1869 - the very year the Suez Canal was opened, ironically an event which signalled the beginning of the end of the Clipper Ship. As a ship she was the perfect design and it is that design which will always remain of special importance to all those who have an interest in the transition of ship building from fibre to steel structures.
Basil Lubbock was an expert when it came to ships, shipping and ship design. In this book he has placed that expertise at the disposal of the reader. He actually spoke to many who had sailed on board the Cutty Sark in addition to many who sailed on her rival ships. Obtaining her logs (and even the logs from those rival vessels) and photographs - still not seen published elsewhere, this book has remained the standard reference work for the Cutty Sark for a great many years.
As others with an interest in this ship have considered writing something new about the Cutty Sark, most have recognised how the definitive work on this great vessel has already been written by someone called Basil Lubbock.
That story is here, the detail is here, the photographs are here. You will not be disappointed. And, if you can support the Cutty Sark Trust at this time, you will be doing the ship itself a great service.
NM
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