Let the Cutty Sark go Free

Simon Jenkins rails about the impending restoration of the Cutty Sark. He points out that the £11 million of lottery money being spent to restore the rotting hulk will turn her into a visitor attraction, or as he puts it “a learning zone.” Is there anything quite so appallingly PC than a learning zone? Sterile and emotionless, they display these magnificent machines inert and silent, shadows of their former selves among the garish assortment of entertainment and catering facilities.

Old machines that have been superceded are usually consigned to the scrapyard or left to rot away forgotten in obscurity. Some, however, are carefully preserved for the benefit of future generations by those who love the sights and sounds that evoke a bygone era. It doesn’t matter whether it is an old motorcycle exuding the aroma of Castrol R, the huffing and puffing of a steam locomotive or the graceful majesty of a tall ship such as the Cutty Sark – they move us when they move. I recall as a child walking around the Cutty Sark and she left something embedded in my psyche. I have grown up with a passion for old machines – bikes, planes, ships, steam engines; it doesn’t matter. They all represent a part of our industrial heritage and they stir me inside when I see and hear them. Like Simon Jenkins, I want to see the Cutty Sark in her full glory, rigging creaking and sails straining ahead of a trade wind, racing for the warm seas of the Indian Ocean. So why not restore her as a working training ship? That indeed would be a learning zone.

Edited to add this, because it says all that I love about the sea and tall ships:

Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

John Masefield