Academy 1/150 Cutty Sark

The Cutty Sark was a clipper, a merchant vessel built in the mid-1800s for conducting international maritime trade. The Cutty Sark was pitted against a new threat, the steam ship Thermopylae, in a race to move tea from China back to Britain. While the Cutty Sark was faster, she still lost the race due to the loss of her rudder. Even so, she arrived only a week after Thermopylae using a makeshift rudder to complete the voyage. This was the beginning of the end for clippers as the steamship era was here to stay.

Even so, Cutty Sark continued service in the wool trade between Australia and Britain. Near the turn of the century, Cutty Sark was sold to a Portuguese firm and performed odd jobs before being reacquired and returned to Greenwich.

The Cutty Sark had been placed on exhibit in Greenwich as part of a maritime museum in 1954 and was nearly destroyed by fire in 2007 during restoration.