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 Australia. He achieved this by taking a more southerly route than previously, to catch the strongest winds in the Roaring Forties despite having to face icebergs, gales and storms whipped up by the winds he sought. "Cutty Sark" was the fastest ship on the wool trade for ten years. In July 1889 the log of the modern passenger steamship recorded that when steaming at 15–16 knots she was overtaken in the night by a sailing ship doing 17 knots, which proved to be "Cutty Sark". Eventually steamships began to dominate the wool trade too and it ceased to be profitable