About a year after my last visit to the Cutty Sark, some yob decided to firebomb the fastest ship on the ocean. This is what you see now. She was the first of the iron framed ships, and all the timber was burnt away, as well as the masts and rigging. It looks for all the world like a bridge or a train station which had suffered damage. Yet, if you look hard, you can see that it is still sitting in her dry dock, with a lot of activitity going on around her!
Brenda snapped a pic of me staring at the devestation. I was not surprised at the wreck, in fact, I am wondering in this picture if there is enough for them to rebuild, and in fact, there is hope that it can be re-built.In the background is the dome which contains a spiral staircase down to a tunnel which goes all the way under the Thames (which in turn is on the other side of the dome!) to a matching staircase and dome on the other side. I wisely did not take this marvel of 19th century engineering.
You can see the bow sprit and the iron frame really well in this picture. The famous figurehead is actually still in existance, and has been removed along with a lot of charcoal in preparation to a remarkable plan to rebuild her. There had been plans to install a great big geodesic dome over head...I suspect monies collected for this dome are going to go to re-rigging instead. 
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