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
Thermopylae (clipper) In 1872, "Thermopylae" raced the clipper "Cutty Sark" from Shanghai back to London. "Thermopylae" won by seven days after "Cutty Sark" lost her rudder. From 1882 onward, "Thermopylae" took part in the Australian wool trade; however, on this route "Cutty Sark" proved faster. In 1897 she was sold to Portugal for use as a naval training ship and renamed "Pedro Nunes". On 13 October 1907, the Portuguese Navy towed her down the Tagus river using two warships, and before Amelia de Orleans, Queen of Portugal, she was torpedoed with full naval honours off Cascais. Thermopylae (clipper) Thermopylae was an extreme