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 October in London via the Cape of Good Hope. "Cutty Sark" sailed in eight "tea seasons", from London to China and back. "Cutty Sark"s launch coincided with the opening of the Suez Canal to shipping. Her first trip encountered significant competition with steamships. The route from the Far East to London (and many other European ports) through the Suez Canal was shorter by about , compared to sailing round the Cape of Good Hope. The route round Africa is in excess of . Typically a clipper might log significantly more than that by planning her route for favourable winds. Whilst