The Cutty Sark re-opens to the public on 26 April 2012 following a £20 million restoration.

Because she was sagging – after years of not being supported by water – the Clyde-built clipper ship has been raised three metres above her dry dock and seated on a ‘sea’ of plastic and glass. By leaving her ‘hanging’ off supports her hull will stop collapsing in on itself.

Visitors will now be able to walk underneath the elevated ship and view the elegant lines of her hull. On board, visitors can explore the ship’s rich and tumultuous history; her various cargoes from tea to wool to buffalo horns, and the cultures and lives she has touched throughout her 140-year lifespan.

She once shared the Greenwich waterfornt with Sir Franci Chichester’s world-girdling ketch, Gipsy Moth IV, in which he tried matching the old Clipper speeds. Yachting Monthly spearheaded the campaign to save the yacht which is now sailing again unlike the Cutty Sark.

For further information visit: cuttysark.org.uk

Image by Visit Greenwich on flickr