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
Lahloo (clipper) days; "Sir Launcelot", 102 days; Leander, 103 days; "Thermopylae", 106 days." "In 1871 the "Titania" won in 93 days; the "Lahloo", 111 days, from Foo-chow to London; and from Shanghai to London the "Thermopylae" was 106 days; "Cutty Sark", 110 days, and "Forward Ho", 118 days. This was about the last of the tea clipper racing, for the combined competition of steam and the Suez Canal proved too powerful for sail. No more tea clippers were built after 1869; by degrees these beautiful vessels were driven into other trades; and so the Clipper Ship Era drifted into history." According to