[6] Funders for the Cutty Sark conservation project include: the Heritage Lottery Fund, the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Sammy Ofer Foundation, Greenwich Council, Greater London Authority, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Berry Brothers & Rudd, Michael Edwards and Alisher Usmanov.

[11]: 20–24 [12] Cutty Sark was given masts that followed the design of The Tweed, with similar good rake and the foremast on both placed further aft than usual.

The ship was to be built to Lloyd's A1 standard and her construction was supervised on behalf of Willis by Captain George Moodie, who would command her when completed.

Rather than simply liquidate the company, an arrangement was made for Denny's to take over the contract and complete the ship, which was finally launched on 22 November 1869 by Captain Moodie's wife.

The ship's figurehead, the original of which has been attributed to carver Fredrick Hellyer of Blackwall, is a stark white carving of a bare-breasted Nannie Dee with long black hair holding a grey horse's tail in her hand.

[1] Her first roundtrip voyage under captain George Moodie began 16 February 1870 from London with a cargo of wine, spirits and beer bound for Shanghai.

The return journey, carrying 1,305,812 pounds (592,306 kg) of tea from Shanghai, began 25 June, arriving 13 October in London via the Cape of Good Hope.

The route from the Far East to London (and many other European ports) through the Suez Canal was shorter by about 3,300 nautical miles (6,100 km; 3,800 mi), compared to sailing round the Cape of Good Hope.

[1]: 209 The numbers of tea clippers sailing to China each year steadily reduced, with many ships being sold and moving to general cargo work.

[31] Two weeks later Cutty Sark had built up a lead of some 400 nautical miles (460 mi; 740 km), but then lost her rudder[34] in a heavy gale after passing through the Sunda Strait.

[citation needed] A little east of the longitude of the Cape we were favoured by a great fair wind blow, that tested all the resources of ship and crew.

Captain W. E. Tiptaft assumed command in 1873 achieving 118 days on his first return trip, but after the ship had to travel 600 nautical miles (1,100 km) up the Yangtze River in search of a cargo.

[citation needed] In November 1877 the ship was anchored off Deal in the English Channel along with sixty other vessels, waiting out a great storm.

He was replaced as Master by William Bruce, who proved to be a drunken incompetent who claimed pay for non-existent crewmen and managed to set sail with inadequate provisions, resulting in the crew starving.

In December 1883, Cutty Sark departed Newcastle, New South Wales with 4,289 bales of wool and 12 casks of tallow, arriving in London in just 83 days.

Caught in a storm in the English Channel she put into Falmouth harbour where she was spotted by retired merchant navy captain Wilfred Dowman of Flushing, Cornwall, who was then operating the training ship Lady of Avenel.

[41] At Greenhithe, Cutty Sark acted as an auxiliary vessel to HMS Worcester for sail training drill, but by 1950 she had become surplus to requirements.

The foundation stone of the dry dock was laid by The Duke of Edinburgh, patron of the Cutty Sark Preservation Society, in June 1953.

By the early 2000s, there were serious concerns about corrosion of the iron internal structure, and the hull was also becoming distorted because more weight was being carried on the keel than if the ship was afloat, when it would be evenly supported over the whole area below the waterline.

[46] In an interview the next day, Richard Doughty, the chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, revealed that at least half of the "fabric" (timbers, etc.)

The chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises said after inspecting the site: "The decks are unsalvageable but around 50% of the planking had already been removed; however, the damage is not as bad as originally expected.

"[citation needed] As part of the restoration work planned before the fire, it was proposed that the ship be raised 3 metres (10 ft), to allow the construction of a state-of-the-art museum space beneath.

The restoration work was criticised by The Victorian Society saying that the needs of the corporate hospitality market were put ahead of the preservation of the historic fabric of the ship.

Doubts over the wisdom of Grimshaw's proposals have been raised by many ship conservationists including the Cutty Sark Trust's own engineer Peter Mason.

[59] In February 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported the project cost had risen to £46 million with public money now being made available by London Borough of Greenwich to fill the funding gap.

All electrical equipment on board was examined and it was determined that an industrial vacuum cleaner in this area was normally running continuously to suck up dust and particles from work going on to break up concrete within the ship.

On the basis of witness evidence, the joint investigation team considered it unlikely that the fire was caused by the hot work (welding) that was being carried out as part of the renovation or by carelessly discarded smokers' materials.

No one had visited this part of the ship since work stopped on Friday evening, and it was considered unlikely that a fire could have smouldered all weekend before finally breaking out Monday morning.

The alarm was raised when one of the guards called the fire brigade; before this the two reported that they had smelled burning plastic and had been investigating to try to determine its source.

The carpenter reported that he had heard machinery operating towards the stern of the ship, but it was not clear whether this might have been the site diesel generator which ran at all times.