Cutty Sark - been on bbc2 tonight 9pm

[Ann]

Did anyone else catch the excellent documentary on the restoration of the Cutty Sark, it has cost such a lot of money but all praise to the people restoring it, a real labour of love. Due to be completed in the Spring - a wonderful old clipper ship. Well worth watching on catch up if you missed it.

[Ann]

I found out something I didn't know from the programme - the "Cutty Sark" name (meaning “short shirt”) came from the garment worn by the witch Nannie in Robert Burns’s poem Tam o’Shanter.

[Mattk]

Saw a little bit of it - how much is original and how much is new?
My point being is it really The Cutty Sark? I heard that the entire deck was new in the 1930's for instance.

Things like this always remind me of Triggers broom in Only Fools and Horses. He says he has had the same broom all his working life and in that time it's had x new heads and y new handles so in other words is not the same broom at all.

[squarebear]

I remember one of the experts on the Antiques Roadshow saying something similar to Matt's example. Some old dear brought along a knife from the days of Oliver Cromwell. It had had 3 new blades and 2 new handles!

[HowardKennitby]

I'm sure Hercules will be glad the old dear is still around.

[Ann]

Here is an interesting article from the Chief Exec of the Cutty Sark Trust
http://www.gresham.ac...nserve-the-cutty-sark

[quizzywig]

Mr Q and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When the Beeb tries it can really gives us very entertaining stuff!

[lyall]

Yes a good programme. Very informative. But I agree with Mattk, how can it be the 'real' Cutty Sark when so much of it has been replaced, and not for the first time. Don’t think I would be prepared to pay to see something that in my mind isn’t 'real'. I highly doubt that they, the Cutty Sark Trust, will advertise it as a replica of Cutty Sark which contains some original parts, but I feel that that is how it should be seen, a replica.