I agree with all the above - including a
strong recommendation to trash those gawdawful "shrouds and ratlines." The next step is to junk the plastic "deadeyes and lanyards." Replacing them with aftermarket parts takes more time and practice (and, unfortunately, more money), but makes a huge difference in the look of the finished model.
There are some excellent references on the
Cutty Sark. For model builders, the first acquisition I recommend is the set of plans drawn by George W. Campbell. (He was the naval architect responsible for the ship's restoration, back in the 1960s.) The plans come in the form of three sheets, and contain every bit of information a modeler could possibly want. (Exception: the details of how the iron hull framework is put together. But that info isn't relevant for most modeling purposes.) And they're fairly easily available. The gift shop on board the ship sells them over the internet for a remarkably reasonable price (about $15, if I remember right). I've heard from a modeler who ordered the plans that way quite recently; he got them, via airmail in a mailing tube, within a week or two.
The
Cutty Sark's website, www.cuttysark.org.uk/ , seems to be down today (at least I couldn't get it to come up), but normally you can use that address to order the plans. Click on the "shop" button and scroll down to "Paintings and Prints."
Those plans can be a little overwhelming, especially if you haven't done much rigging work before. Quite a few good books are available. The Mondfeld work that highlanderburial mentioned is a good one - a solid, basic text on ship modeling, though its coverage is so broad that it doesn't give much info on any specific ship. Another excellent, low-priced beginner's text is George Campbell's
Neophyte Shipmodeler's Jackstay. Mr. Campbell's book
China Tea Clippers is a fun, well-done source of excellent drawings and information about ships like the
Cutty Sark.
If you're interested in "reading around the edges" of this subject, the best general work on rigging of ships during that period is Harold A. Underhill's
Masting and Rigging: The Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier.
On the ship herself, the most thorough book is
The Log of the Cutty Sark, by Basil Lubbock. And the old classic by C. Nepean Longridge,
The Cutty Sark: The Ship and the Model, tells in detail how Longridge built his beautiful 1/48-scale version, which is now in the Science Museum in London. The book is seriously dated (Longridge was working in the 1920s and 1930s), but it's a great source of inspiration.
If you only want to get one source, though, and you're looking primarily for help in rigging the Revell kit, I think the purchase I'd recommend is the Campbell plans. There's more information on those three sheets of paper than can be found in most books, and they're among the biggest bargains in ship modeling.
Hope this helps. Good luck.