Cutty Sark wind. The ship was named after Cutty-sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burns's 1791 poem "Tam o' Shanter". 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. In the poem she wore a linen (Scots: a short chemise or undergarment), that she had been given as a child, which explains why it was "cutty", or in other words far too short. The erotic sight of her dancing
Cutty Sark straightforward as a steamship, as winds vary and a ship must tack when sailing into the wind, both requiring the crew to make constant adjustments to sails, so her speed also depended greatly on the skill of her captain and crew. Her greatest recorded distance in 24 hours was averaging , although she recorded 2163 miles in six days, which given the weather over the whole period implied she had achieved over some days. By comparison, "Thermopylae"s best recorded 24-hour distance was . "Cutty Sark" was considered to have the edge in a heavier wind, and "Thermopylae" in a lighter