A ship partialy in a bottle, Click for larger image
After a multi-year, £50 million restoration, interrupted by a near catastrophic fire, the composite clipper ship, Cutty Sark, reopened last April. Not everyone was impressed. Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph‘s London Editor, called the restoration “a clucking, Grade A, … turkey.” In September, the British architectural trade journal, Building Design, awarded the restoration of the historic tea clipper the 2012 Carbuncle Cup for the worst new building design in Britain. The Victorian Society’s new director Chris Costelloe has opined that it’s a pity that commercial motives were placed above heritage interests.” Ouch.
While attending the Historical Novel Society 2012 conference in London last week, I spent a few hours crawling through the venerable ship. There is indeed both good news and bad. The bad is primarily related to what happens when the party planners and corporate events schedulers overrule the naval architects and ship restorers. Nevertheless, there are areas where, Andrew Gilligan’s complaints notwithstanding, the ship presentation seems much improved over the previous incarnation.
The Good
The primary access to the ship is through a door cut in the starboard side of the ship below the waterline. (As the ship is permanently in dry dock, this isn’t a problem. The old entrance was a hole cut in the side in way of the tween deck, which has since been closed and the structure restored.) You enter on a new deck in the hold of the ship. The deck is laminated with images of tea boxes so that if you have a vivid enough imagination you might imagine that you are walking on the tea cargoes that the ship carried in the early years of her life. For those whose imagination is not quite so vivid there are also stacks of three dimensional tea boxes to give visitors an idea of the size and shape of the cargo for which the ship was designed. The hold is filled with displays about the tea trade and the Cutty Sark, including a video and multimedia projectors displaying information on the hull.
Click for a larger image Photo: R Spilman
Over all, it is engaging and educational, which is by no means a bad thing. This was my first visit to the ship but I have been told by friends who visited previously that prior to this restoration, below decks had been largely empty except for a display of figureheads lined up on the tween deck. (The figureheads are now displayed on the far end of the drydock wall.) Using the hold space as museum space only makes sense and is not unlike the exhibits on the Star of India and other historic ships.
Click for a larger image. Photo: R Spilman
The original iron frames, braces and beams are all painted white, which stands out nicely against the dark planking and communicates visually the structure of a composite ship, as well demonstrating the extent of the deterioration of the original structure. The new support beams and tie rods to the keel, made necessary by the horrible decision to hang the ship in the air, are evident but not too obvious as they are painted black and blend in a bit.
Click for a larger image. Photo: R Spilman
While the hold is dedicated to the tea trade, the tween deck displays are focused on the wool trade and the ship’s later years. There are large wool bales, as well as photographs, maps and ship models to help flesh out the ship’s history.
Access to the main deck forward is through a metal stair which is glass enclosed on the main deck. A glass enclosed elevator is aft. Andrew Gilligan and other critics have complained about this “shopping–centre–style” access. Their complaints here are over-blown. The day I was there it was raining and the glass both keep the stairs and the tween deck dry and was less intrusive than if the stairway had been an opaque material.
Overall, to my eye, the exhibits and displays below decks were nicely executed, certainly as compared to an empty tween deck and hold guarded by rows of figureheads, as describe to me by friends.
Click for a larger image. Photo: R Spilman
The main deck was also well done. The rigging is new, the varnish on the deck houses is fresh and the deck barely scuffed. Studdingsail spars are in place below the yards, though not rigged, for display purposes. Staysail sheets are secured a bit incongruously to down-haul blocks or to stays, apparently more from a sense of completeness than necessity.
The cabin aft and the cabins in the two deck houses forward of the poop are open to visitors with occasional holographic sailors, which are rather fun.
The tour of the ship is self-guided, which is fortunate as the personnel aboard, while being extremely friendly and eager, knew very little about the ship beyond the basic lists of facts that they all had memorized. One admitted quite spontaneously that she knew almost nothing about rigging that no one aboard did either. When I asked another about the cargo deadweight of tea that the ship carried, I was told that the cargo could make 2 million cups of tea, which is not a standard unit of measurement that I am familiar with.
The souvenir guide book refers to a 600 tonne cargo of tea, while the Wikipedia page says that the ship carried 1450 tons of tea on the same voyage and Lubbock, in his book, “Log of the Cutty Sark,” quotes a cargo deadweight of 1100 tonnes. At least now I have a rough idea of the ship’s capacity, if not an exact figure, which is fine with me.
The Bad
Click for a larger image. Photo: R Spilman
While there is much good in the new renovation, so too is there bad. Most of the worst features can be traced directly to a single decision. Someone decided that the floor of the drydock would make a wonderful party/corporate events space, if only the ship didn’t get in the way. There is absolutely nothing wrong with building in likely sources of revenue to support the ship financially, however, at some point the planners lost sight of why they were restoring the ship and seemed to focus primarily on the ship as a prop for their party space.
Ellis Woodman, Building Design executive editor and Carbuncle Cup judge, writes:
The scheme’s myriad failings stem from one calamitous choice: the decision to hoist the 154-year-old clipper close to three metres into the air on canted steel props. The Cutty Sark Trust assures us that this very invasive surgery was crucial to the ship’s long-term conservation. Its former dry-docked situation had caused the hull to distort but now, elevated and protected from the elements within a fully air-conditioned glass enclosure, it will supposedly maintain its shape. Historic ship experts have, however, been all but united in their disdain for the strategy. Even the Cutty Sark’s own former chief engineer, Peter Mason, resigned from the project in 2009 after seeing computer simulations that suggested the act of lifting would put a dangerous level of stress on the fabric.
The ship is effectively being hung in the air by the tween deck. Massive steel columns act as thrust bars from the drydock to the ship, connecting to new beams and girders beneath the tween deck and tied to the keel with tie rods. If the former keel blocking had caused deformation of the hull, one can only image what this sort of suspension might do.
The Ugly
Apart from any damage that hanging the ship in the air might cause the ship’s structure, the upward angled struts make the glass enclosure around the ship into a shallow dome that partially hides the ship’s hull The ship seems to be sitting on a glass dog pillow obscuring the ship’s graceful lines. Some have compared the structure to a poorly designed bus terminal built around the ship. Then adding insult to injury, a massive rectangular structure has been dropped next to the ship which houses another elevator and HVAC equipment. The combined effect is to dramatically distract from the ship itself.
And what benefit has been created by hanging the ship in the air under the ugly and oversized glass greenhouse? Only time will tell if it becomes a major events space which will help finance the Cutty Sark’s future. Right now, the only thing under the ship is a rather sad cafe, serving sandwiches and chips to patrons who eat on formica tables while sitting in blue plastic chairs under the keel and rudder of the mighty clipper ship. The juxtaposition is jarring.
In the end I agree, in part, with all sides of the discussion. The Cutty Sark of today is, no doubt, an improvement of the pre-renovation ship. I never visited the ship prior to her renovation but based on what friends tell me, the ship is more interesting and educational now than it was before. That being said, the hoisting of the ship in the air by her tween deck and the construction of the ugly glass greenhouse over the structure seems uniquely ill-advised.
I can confirm your friends’ descriptions of the old Cutty Sark layout. Your photos show a considerable improvement in her function as a museum. Pity about the rest, though…
Let’s hope the good outweighs the bad. Looking beyond the horrible architecture and questionable engineering, the presentation of the ship itself is beautiful, engaging and educational.
Rick what did you think of being able to see the ship from a fishes view ? While the decision to hoist her in the air caused much concern, it seems to me to be a great way to get a look at the underside of the ship, the previously unknown component that made her one the fastest ships in history.
Ed,
If they had put her on conventional blocks she would have been just as, or perhaps more, visible. If they raised her up on pillars, it would have been the functional equivalent of hanging her by her tween deck. If anything, because she is 11 feet in the air, the first impression is not of the ship but of the empty drydock floor. (Let’s hope they make lots of money with it as a party space.) If she was lower it would be easier to follow the flow the sweep of her waterlines with your eyes. To get a good sense of the hull form, one might climb the drydock steps at the bow. Unfortunately you can’t do that, because the figureheads that once lined the tween deck are now cluster at the forward end of the drydock.
“In the end I agree, in part, with all sides of the discussion. The Cutty Sark of today is, no doubt, an improvement of the pre-renovation ship. I never visited the ship prior to her renovation but based on what friends tell me, the ship is more interesting and educational now than it was before.”
Rick, I am glad you admit to not having visited the ship prior to the “renovation” or I would be picking dinosaur-size bones with you about using “The good” in the title, and about agreeing “in part with all sides”. The on-board exhibits are, indeed, an improvement. The old exhibition was staid and stodgy; it had been virtually unchanged since the 1950s but improving the displays inside the ship could have been done at any time and is entirely independent from repairs and alterations to the ship’s structure and the way the ship herself is displayed.
The ‘tween deck was not “empty”; it had exhibits about the history of clippers, of the ship, etc. They just were “old fashioned”, rather unimaginative. Museology has come a long way since the fifties. Revamping could have been done sooner but was held back by the more pressing need to carry out restoration work to the ship’s masting and rigging, decks and hull, including the keel that had problems going back to the time when she was built.
One of the reasons for placing the ship in a dry-dock was to allow visitors to admire her fine clipper lines below the waterline. Although that dock was completely walled in, with the ship facing the Thames it was still possible to entertain the impression that she was docked for routine maintenance. Now she looks like a corpse in a bier. The public did not have access to the floor of the dock; that could have been arranged with the ship back on suitable keel blocks or, more likely, a continuous block. Ships are meant to be afloat and their structure does strain when resting on their keel out of the water but I shudder to think at the strains resulting from suspending the vessel by her ‘tween deck. Why not, then have suspended the ship like an ex-voto from St-Paul’s cathedral? Whoever thought of this arrangement should be suspended by his ears. That there are loony architects and designers is one thing, but decisions like that are taken by committees and such committees for national treasures are supposed to be staffed by experts with a sense of wisdom and history.
I do not buy the “fund-raising corporate event” argument. Such events used to be held aboard, with catering on the ‘tween deck, and the setting and atmosphere were much more congenial than in the bear pit under a greenhouse that has all the nautical flavour of a modern railway station cafeteria. Exhibits and meeting space are not mutually exclusive; there are many ways the two can be obtained on the same deck space. I do not know if the new cafeteria-style arrangement can hold more people, but if you want to entertain a large crowd, there is a another more suitable monumental cock-up and waste of public money close at hand, namely the Millennium Dome (O2). At least the carbuncle was erected on disused land; it has not engulfed and digested a historical landmark.
Back in the 1970s and 80s, I was the chairman of a traditional sail association that held annual dinners on the Cutty Sark with distinguished guest speakers. Such private-party use of the clipper was very unusual at the time but the venue was great and offered no “logistical” problems. Catering was provided by outside caterers parking their vans near the ship. That same association is now winding up in a few days time with a farewell dinner in Greenwich, with a guest speaker to talk about the Cutty Sark “renovation”. The party is NOT being held aboard or in the pit.
The old entrance through the ship’s side, at ‘tween deck level, was already rather unfortunate. Boarding under the waterline is even more bizarre. Boarding such sailing ships is by a brow, a gangway in lubberese, and that is part of the atmosphere. If one did not want the “atmosphere” of hoisting and swinging inboard people in wheelchairs, via boat davits or blocks and tackle, a discreet at-the-level false quay could have been erected on the side of the ship where photographers cannot move back away far enough to take a picture of the whole ship without a fisheye lens. Instead of something like that, the clipper is afflicted by a monumentally ugly glass box hugging her starboard side that, if it were opaque, would be guessed to be a public lavatory for trolls or giants. It appears it has department-store lifts going from the top floor for new furniture to the bargain basement and cafeteria, and an air-conditioning plant that, of course, has too be big and bulky to cool down the glass bier.
Visitor access from the weather deck to the ‘tween deck unavoidably calls for a covered companionway that was not part of the original deck plan. In the days of trade, that part of the ship was strictly for cargo and accessed by stevedores through the hatch. A wonderful opportunity for another glass wart, and I am astonished they did not go for a pyramid-shaped one like glass pyramid like the verruca in the Louvre’s Napoleon courtyard in Paris. A wooden structure in keeping with the style of the period deckhouses, and as found for the same companion purpose on large sail training ships could have misled the public in believing it was part of the original ship…
I never believed I could puke aboard a ship in dry-dock…
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