Cutty-sark (witch) "chemise", or "shirt". The earliest recorded literary usage of the term "cutty sark" (as opposed to older usage of the two separate words) is by Dougal Graham in c. 1779 (the year of his death): "A cutty sark of guide harn sheet, My mitter he pe spin, mattam." In Burns' 1791 poem Tam o' Shanter, the drunken Tam, riding home on his horse, happens upon a witches' dance. Among the dancing figures is a particularly beautiful young witch named Nannie (Scots pet-form of Anna), "ae winsome wench and wawlie" (line 164). She is wearing a "harn" (linen) "sark" (nightshirt) which
Cutty Sark to a minimum and rigs were often reduced to barque so that a smaller crew was needed. "Cutty Sark"s well known race against "Thermopylae" took place in 1872, the two ships leaving Shanghai together on 18 June. Two weeks later "Cutty Sark" had built up a lead of some , but then lost her rudder in a heavy gale after passing through the Sunda Strait. John Willis's brother was on board the ship and ordered Moodie to put into Cape Town for repairs. Moodie refused, and instead the ship's carpenter Henry Henderson constructed a new rudder from spare timbers and