Cutty sark disaster

Searat 12, I agree completely with your last post - and the example you mentioned regarding the spritsail vs. the jib is precisely the sort of thing I was talking about in my earlier comment regarding the research value of replica ships.  (It's worth noting that Alan Villiers was among those who dismissed the spritsail as a piece of silliness - until he got some actual experience with one.) 

In your next-to-last post, you seem to have read something into my last one that wasn't there.  My point was simply that the standards and ethics of the artifact conservation field are, quite properly, determined by professional conservators with intensive academic training in the related sciences (organic chemistry, physics, microbiology, etc.) - training that neither you nor I possess in sufficient degree to make us qualified commentators on the technical fine points of conservation. 

We have now found a good deal of common ground, along with some areas in which it's clear that we aren't going to agree.  I suggest this would be a good time to drop the matter.

Prof Tilley, your posts are like reading an issue of Naval History.. rarely I read one of your posts without writing some note or tidbit down... thanks for taking the time for your detailed and well constructed posts.

PS I am not "taking sides" on the debate, just enjoying the plethora of information and stories about naval conservation. Cheers all!

Yup, I agree with just about everything that has been said, and Prof Tilley and I really have just one discrepancy between us, and that is that I HATE to think of a ship, ANY ship, as an 'artifact,' since it generally and simply by the nature of its treatment (in the hands of conservators and curators) becomes an 'artifiction!'  The 'professional' conservators with all their academic training simply DO NOT HAVE the actual 'hands on' training or lore learned by centuries of experience handed down by generations necessary to deal with the 'preservation' of a ship.  Any ship!  Yes, they can 'save' or 'conserve' a small piece of wood, or even a fairly large piece of wood, maybe even a piece of rope.  But that is not a ship.   

A ship is simply too large, too complex a living organism to ever maintain 'as original' for any amount of time, even if they had the money and resources to try (and Cutty Sark had been converted to all intensive purposes to a coffee bar and gifte shoppe before she burned).  The latest 'conservation' iteration sounds more like the 'Millenium Dome' to me!  I note that they plan to replace the keel, the main deck, all of the sheathing, replace all of the shores and props with 'a new system' to ensure the hull doesn't lose it's shape (which apparently it had because of bad blocking, just as I said in my previous posts!), install elevators, and even an auditorium on the main deck fer gawd's sake!  They will have to replace a fair bit of the ironwork too, as so much had corroded before the fire (which in this instance, may be something of a blessing, since now they can get at the ironwork properly).  And yet, they still claim that the ship will be '90-95% original from her seagoing days.'  Sounds more like the story of my great great grandfathers axe.... All I have to say is a good ol' Yankee expletive.... Pshaw!!

This is why the Vasa is dying, this is why Cutty Sark is dying (if not actually dead), and the same can be said for just about EVERY ship that is part of a museum, rather than in use, it is all just a matter of time, and of course, how many 'conservators' manage to get their hands on it......

I cannot go along with searat's assessment of this subject.  No matter how big, how complex or how much 'life' we emotional beings might ascribe to a ship, aircraft, steam engine or whatever, they are merely artefacts - tools -  no more important in that sense than grandfather's axe.  What they achieved, or rather, what was achieved using them is far more important than the devices themselves.

At the same time it is far more important to posterity to see at close hand what they looked like, felt like and how they were built than what emotions were stirred by seeing them in motion (or hearing them fly overhead, or whatever...) and future generations will hardly thank us for our selfishness in destroying them to satisfy our desires;  "Look kids, this pile of scrap used to be a beautiful flying machine - you should have seen and heard it as it climbed and looped and dived through the sky...I did, but you never will". 

At least if it's preserved it's available to provide patterns to produce a replica, when it's gone it's gone for good.  I know that the first time I got close to a WWII aeroplane in a museum it had a much greater impact on me than seeing another example that had been restored to fly; the first showed all the wear, tear and minor dings and scrapes accumulated in a life of service (or even from manufacture), the other was artificially 'perfect' and who knows what compromises had been made to comply with modern regulation.

I must admit the first machine left me with a much greater understanding and respect for those who took these machines to war and trusted their lives to them.  I think the same applies to ships whether built for war or peace.  And if the 'gifte shoppe' helps CS to pay its way in this commercial world then it's a necessary evil.

As to Wasa I daresay she has added a great deal more to our knowledge of how such ships were constructed since her raising than she ever would have half buried in mud 100ft under the ocean. 

Michael 

Well said, MJH.  And by the way - the Wasa isn't in the best of health, but she's not "dying."  I'm not thoroughly knowledgeable about the subject, but as I understand it her custodians have discovered some serious problems with the polyethelene glycol treatment she got back in the fifties and sixties.  (She was one of the first artifacts to get that treatment; it was to some extent an experimental one.)  Some of the best, most qualified brains in the worldwide field of conservation are working on the problem; I'm confident that there is a solution, and that these people will find it.  And in this particular case, funding, for once, should not be a problem.  I'm reliably informed that she's the biggest tourist attraction in Sweden.  The government knows it can't afford to let her fall apart.

Apparently you didn't read my last post closely.  A ship is NOT an airplane!  An airplane can be carefully stowed inside a museum, and climate controlled, and you can't do the same with a ship!  Cutty Sark has had, and is going to have so much replaced on her, or bastardized for the sake of commercialism that it really will have very little to do with the old ship!  In other words, it is just a collection of old wood and iron, with very little context.  If you want to see what a ship really looks like, feels like, and how they were built and operated, you will NEVER get that from a static display, no matter how 'original' it may claim to be!  Take a charter on a Tall Ship, be a part of its crew AT SEA for a few days, and you will learn far more than any book, or display will EVER teach you!  And that's a guarantee.....  I think you have missed the point I have been trying to make, and that is, we ARE destroying many of these ships to satisfy our selfish desires, by putting them in a static museum, we are loving them to death!  Cutty Sark now IS a 'pile of scrap' that used to be a beautiful clipper ship, and you and your children will NEVER see, or hear, or feel what it USED to be like (unless a replica is built and sailed).

It is important to understand that a ship's useful life is measured in decades, even centuries, whereas an airplanes useful life, or even it's level of technology is hopelessly obsolete within just a few years.  A WW2 fighter could only be expected to be usefull for a couple years at best, even if it didn't get shot down or crashed.  Thus, the airplane survivors that still exist really ARE 'ephemera,' and the social and other structures that go along with them, that put them in context are even more fleeting.  To put ships in the same perspective as an old WW2 airplane, think if your visiting experience was not just seeing the plane fly ("you should have seen it..."), but included the whole aircrew, not 'pretending' to be a WW2 aircrew, but in fact ARE a WW2 aircrew, with all the rank structure, the mess hall, promotions, camaraderie, etc, etc, etc.  And YOU can actually be a part of all that, not JUST an observer or reader of labels (though that is possible too, if you wish).  That is what you get with a Tall Ship in active commission!  Why?  Because with a traditional Tall Ship there really is only one way to do things, the same way it has always been done, and for the same reasons.  Can you understand the difference of experience?

As far as patterns, etc, there are excellent plans available for the construction of just about every Tall Ship, many of them the original builders plans, others been created after the fact to ensure the information is not lost.  And these are available regardless of whether the actual ship is still in existence, for use in the future should someone wish to build a sistership.

 Yes, Vasa has provided a wealth of detail about period ship-building practices, but far more important from a historical and anthropoligical view were all the personal items found aboard, the context they were found in, all of which revealed enormous amounts of information as to the social structure inherent in life aboard a ship of this period (its sudden loss created a snapshot of social and cultural history).  But you know, the information about how the ship was built really didn't take that long to figure out.  It is all the rest of the stuff aboard that has kept researchers busy ever since.  One quick aside, although they know how Vasa was constructed, actually constructing a ship by these methods has turned out to be MUCH more difficult than anyone imagined!  The great Dutch Flagship 'Zeven Provincien' was built in the same manner as Vasa, and the people in the Netherlands have been trying to build a replica in the same manner.  Halfway through the construction of the lower hull they discovered they weren't able to do it, and have had to start over, this time using English style construction which is completely different.  Why?  Because the actual techniques used in the old Dutch ship-building method have quite simply been lost to time, and while we know the theory, and we even have diagrams of how to do it, the practical experience to do so has been lost, despite the best historical research by the best people.......

 Finally, I am not suggesting that ANY old or historic ship should be simply destroyed, as that WOULD be a tragedy.  All I am suggesting is that the old ships either be brought up to commission status, of if that is not possible, to build a replica and USE it, not only to understand what that ship was really all about, but to ALSO create a revenue stream to preserve as much as possible of the original.  To do otherwise simply guarantees the eventual loss of the original, and all of its social and historical meaning (I'd rather see a real indian, being an indian, in the indian nations, than to look at a collection of arrowheads in a museum!)

Gentlemen,

Let's dial back the heat here. Obviously there is a core disagreement about the philosophy of preservation as it relates to ships and other machines. How about we agree to disagree and leave the rhetoric out.

On a personal note, I've always been tempted by Revell's Sark. One of these days ...

I spent the last year of my Navy enlistment on the USS Lexington. She was a "living ship" in that she had a full crew and regular upkeep and proper(?) maintenance. But that ship was a creaking, leaking, squeaking tub beyond all the tweaking that could be done to help her. That was in 1976. The Navy kept her patched up for another 15 years until decommissioning her in 1991. How they kept that boat going still amazes me. One way, I suppose, was to limit her to operations to the Gulf of Mexico where the seas are very calm and to relegate her operations to pilot training. I was so happy that the Navy decided to allow her to become a museum instead of scrapping her or turning her into an artifiical reef ala Oriskany or the America. My kids, grandchildren and theirs, for that matter, will be able to visit her and stand on the same bridge I stood watch on (and where Admiral Mitscher gave the order to "Turn on the lights" during the battle of the Phillippine Sea) long after I'm gone and wonder on it. Make them all into museums for all I care, just keep them when ever it's possible.

I'd like, if I may, to meditate a little more on MJH's comments.  He was talking specifically about historic aircraft, but much of what he says is equally applicable to other categories of artifact.

Aircraft preservation - for better or worse - has developed in the past few decades sort of independently from other branches of the field.  Quite apart from the "warbird" approach to flying the old machines (a practice worthy of discussion in its own right), airplanes in museums often tend to be treated differently than other artifacts.  Maybe it's partly because so many airplane restorers are former (or current) pilots, but there does seem to be an instinctive desire to "spiff up" the old machines as much as possible.  In the past few years some conservators and curators have started wondering whether that's really the only legitimate approach - for many of the reasons implied in MJH's post.

I confess I've got mixed emotions about the subject.  The first time I saw a beautifully restored, shiny, perfect-looking SPAD, at the Air Force Museum in Dayton, when I was in high school, was quite a revelation.  For one thing, I could scarcely believe how small the thing was.  (Somehow none of the models I'd built had managed to convey that.)  And I'd always tended to think of WWI airplanes as crude, primitive, somehow sort of sloppy contraptions.  The carefully carved and varnished struts, the intricate stitchery of the fabric, and the straightforward but expert workmanship of the metal work did away with that misconception for once and for all. 

But did that airplane actually look like that when it was in service?  I doubt it.  Does it really convey, as well as it's capable of doing, a sense of what air warfare in WWI was like?  I doubt it.  Maybe, in their meticulous workmanship and their reverence for the artifact (and "reverence" is the word for the attitude lots of those guys take - quite properly, in my opinion), the restorers unconsciously did away with some of that elusive thing called "character." 

Aviation museums routinely do some things that other museums frown upon.  For a long time it's been considered ordinary, for instance, to paint old airplanes in color schemes they never wore in their service careers.  (Every P-51 had to be painted in the markings of some famous ace.  And for a long time it was hard to find a restored P-40 that didn't have a "shark mouth" on its nose - regardless of how it had ever been painted before.)  The best museums are moving away from that approach nowadays.  They're also recognizing that imperfections, and even damage, can be important parts of the artifacts' history.  (When the Smithsonian restored its Albatros D-V, the conservators found the bullet in the engine that, they think, had brought the plane down.  They could have repaired the damage.  They didn't.  Bravo.) 

One of my favorite exhibits at Dayton now is centered around a WWII trainer.  (I haven't been there in several years; I don't remember exactly which aircraft it is.)  It's exhibited (at least I assume this is still the case) standing on its nose, on a (reproduction) twisted-up prop - obviously the victim of a messed up landing by a student.  The student himself, in the form of a mannequin dressed in meticulously authentic reproduction WWII flying gear, is standing alongside, trying desperately to explain what happened to an obviously furious instructor.  A few feet away, a mechanic with a rueful look on his face is contemplating the job of replacing the prop.  I hate to think how much those mannequins must have cost, but to my eye - and to the eyes of quite a few other visitors who happened by while I was there - the effect was worth the money.  (The typical reaction of visitors when they came around the corner and saw the exhibit was to start laughing.  How refreshing to hear laughter in a museum!) 

Conservation - of ships, airplanes, and all other types of artifacts - is a complicated subject.  In deciding how to deal with a particular artifact's problems, the good conservator and curator take all sorts of things into consideration, and recognize that no one approach is necessarily the "right" one in all circumstances.  But they also regard certain basic points as crucial:  their responsibility to the artifact and the generations of people who will be coming to see it.  One highly desirable (though sometimes unattainable) attribute of any modern conservation technique is "reversibility" - the ability to undo whatever the conservator does to the artifact and bring it back to the state in which he or she found it.  Reversibility allows for the possibility that some later conservator may figure out a better way to handle the problem.

There are plenty of "right" ways to restore and conserve precious old airplanes.  But please - don't fly them.

....and I can certainly agree with that Prof Tilley!

There is much I would like to say about the flying of irreplaceable historic aircraft but I tend to get overly emotional and then to rant.  The story of Black 6, the Messerschmidt Bf109 that was restored to fly in the nineties, is at least one with a 'happy' ending.  After a very short flying career this invaluable example pranged after an engine failure.  Fortunately it was not destroyed and the pilot was unhurt.  Then came the inevitable cries, "Black 6 must fly again".  Fortunately the MoD, who own the 'plane disagreed and after further restoration it is permanently grounded - available for future generations to examine at close quarters and to be suitably impressed.  Of course the MoD may have also been influenced by budgetary concerns and been glad of an excuse, I don't know.

At least we won't see her on a five-second clip the evening news ploughing into the ground in a ball of fire. 

There is a sort of parallel in motor cars, also German as it turns out.  Just before WWII Mercedes Benz created the T80, designed to wrest the land speed record for Nazi Germany and projected to reach 750kph (a speed still not exceeded by conventional engine-driven wheeled vehicles).  it was abandoned at the start of the war but still exists, engineless, in the MB museum.

It was meant to be powered by a 44.5l Daimler-Benz DB603 and such an engine still exists.  Predictably, there are those who say "put the (rare and unique) DB603 in the (even more rare and unique) T80 and let's see if it could have achieved its promise!"

Thank the gods MB are not that stupid.

Speaking of housing historic ships, I can't see that it would be particularly difficult to build a dome over Cutty Sark, but would it be aesthetically satisfactory?  To my mind enclosing the ship would take away more than it would add - imagine not being able to photograph those masts and rigging against the sky - just a thought.

Michael 

The Cutty Sark's website has some artist's renderings of the new "dome" arrangement.  The glass isn't going to enclose the whole ship.  (There were rumors to that effect early on - and they had me a little worried.)  The "dome" is going to seal the space between the hull and the sides of the drydock.  The ship will be lifted several feet above her current level; visitors will be able to walk directly underneath her.  Some sort of elevator arrangement is going to be installed to carry people from the drydock to the maindeck level.  I don't understand quite how that's going to work, but apparently it's the new solution to the problem of (a) providing access, (b) doing away with the big door that used to be in the port side of the ship, and (c) avoiding a big stairway or ramp that would bring people on board over the rail - and devastate the ship's sheerline. 

To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to like the appearance of all this any better than I liked the way she used to look.  (I always found the old arrangement, with the waterline level with the pier, quite aesthetically pleasing - and I was willing to accept the logic that resulted in the big door and the maintaining of the portholes in the sides for ventilation.)  But in terms of conserving the hull over the long term the new arrangement has been pronounced by the experts to be a sound design - and that's what's most important.

I'm only aware of one good-sized historic ship that's preserved, more-or-less intact, indoors:  the Wasa.  The Wasa Museum (which I haven't had the good fortune to visit) apparently is an enormous building, with the ship exhibited in such a way that visitors can get a good view of her from some distance and look down from a balcony onto her upper deck.  She only has her lower masts, though.  One big practical problem involved in enclosing a ship with intact masts in an environmentally stable building is that it commits the institution, long-term,  to paying a staggering heating and air conditioning bill to heat and cool all the space around those masts.  (I can't begin to imagine how much it would cost to heat a big open space big enough to enclose the entire spar plan of the Wasa through a Swedish winter.) That's a big reason why so few ships and boats are exhibited indoors with their masts set up.

The joint where I used to work tried to solve the problem with a "small craft building," a cheap structure that amounted essentially to an enormous, sheet-metal shed, which was big enough to hold about a hundred boats of various sorts and tall enough to allow their masts to be raised.  The basic idea probably was sound, but the museum never had enough money to do it right.  The building was always officially regarded as temporary, but when I was working there, in the early eighties, it had been there for at least twenty years - and as far as I know it's still there.  The task of sealing out untreated air (and birds, in considerable numbers) and maintaining consistent temperature and humidity readings was simply beyond the institution's capacity.  Every few weeks the curator of small craft could be heard complaining about some new disaster inside that building - either a bird had crapped on the Venetian gondola, or the summer humidity was making some delicate woodwork fall apart, or it was raining inside.  (That actually happened a couple of times.)  She repeatedly argued that the boats would be better off sitting out in the open (on the ground - not in the water).  The Powers that Be kept assuring her that the problem was temporary; that a series of new "pavilions" was going to be built along the shore of the adjacent lake where all the boats would be exhibited properly.  In the 25 years since I left, one of those facilities, the "Chesapeake Bay Gallery," has in fact been built; four or five of the boats from the shed have been moved into it.  So far as I know, the others are still sitting in the old "Small Craft Building."  That's one of my big criticisms of the administrations that have run that museum for the past 25 years.  But there's been a change of administrations recently.  Maybe things will get better soon....

Maybe they should move Cutty Sark to the 'Millenium Dome'!  Or perhaps they should just saw it in half lengthwise, to provide a 'cutaway' view with animatronic 'actors' to play the crew at work, Disney-fashion....(God save us all from marketeers!).  As I said before, there just isn't enough money available to do the jobs right!   I think probably the finest museum of ships and small craft is Mystic Seaport.  The larger craft are all in the water, the small craft are in sheds (most of them without or with truncated masts, but that keeps the roof low so as to make it easier to control the humidity, temperature, etc), and they have a working shipyard as well to do any repairs that are needed, as well as a working blacksmith, chandler, ropewalk, etc, etc, to complete the 'whole picture.'  Really quite remarkable, and it all works together.........

Oh, and here's another note regarding aircraft.  It was mentioned earlier that some people like to see the planes in museums that are battered and weather-worn, in preference to shiny and perfect... Airplanes REALLY don't like to be beat up, as they have a lot of quite delicate systems aboard that don't take kindly to poor maintenance (even WW1 planes!).  As a result, ground-crews used to spend an inordinate amount of time doing their very best to keep the planes as clean and shiny as possible at all times.  This is especially important with the early wood and canvas planes, as dirt and moisture plays hell with the wing surfaces (in fact, they didn't fly in the rain at all, and were often grounded if the strip was too muddy), and the engines were fickle enough as it was, let alone allowing a bunch of crud to build up.  Also, the lifespan of planes 'at the front' was remarkably short, even if they didn't crash or get shot down.  Partly this was because of the rapid advance of technology rendering planes dangerously obsolete within a year or eighteen months at most (though bombers often remained in frontline service for extended periods).  In WW1, this 'effective' period could be as little as six months!  As a result, the combination of careful maintenance and 'newness' for most planes in actual service meant the craft were in pretty good shape when active (though spells at 'unimproved' airfields in WW2 might reduce this level fairly quickly, as well as periods of rapid turnaround for multiple missions, and with consequent aircraft losses as a result). 

In other words, a beat up or grubby plane is an accident waiting to happen, and it wouldn't wait long!  So when you look at a battered aircraft in a museum, it is important to remember that this is not how the plane looked when it was active, but is either how the plane was found, or the best the museum could afford as far as restoration without replacing original parts (which would certainly have been done in service). This is especially true of 'enemy' aircraft on display, as a lot of them were either tested extensively after capture, and then abandoned for long periods before they were conserved, or they were captured in a 'grounded' state specifically BECAUSE they were too rough to fly safely anymore.

Some good youtube stuff for fans of ships at sea... Listen to Alan Villiers, and have a look at what Cutty Sark might have looked like at sea....

Alan Villiers
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ufNzunuXMCc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqz56XfW8SI&NR=1

Amistad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUtPQ7X8G8M&feature=related

Stad Amsterdam Clipper ship
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn4fT-0lPko&feature=related

Stad Amsterdam underweigh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfNyxOGrF0Q&feature=related

Coulda been Cutty Sark, but it ain't, it's Stad Amsterdam!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMJc6mWoZog&feature=related

searat12 wrote:

Oh, and here's another note regarding aircraft.  It was mentioned earlier that some people like to see the planes in museums that are battered and weather-worn, in preference to shiny and perfect... Airplanes REALLY don't like to be beat up, as they have a lot of quite delicate systems aboard that don't take kindly to poor maintenance (even WW1 planes!).  As a result, ground-crews used to spend an inordinate amount of time doing their very best to keep the planes as clean and shiny as possible at all times.  This is especially important with the early wood and canvas planes, as dirt and moisture plays hell with the wing surfaces (in fact, they didn't fly in the rain at all, and were often grounded if the strip was too muddy), and the engines were fickle enough as it was, let alone allowing a bunch of crud to build up.  Also, the lifespan of planes 'at the front' was remarkably short, even if they didn't crash or get shot down.  Partly this was because of the rapid advance of technology rendering planes dangerously obsolete within a year or eighteen months at most (though bombers often remained in frontline service for extended periods).  In WW1, this 'effective' period could be as little as six months!  As a result, the combination of careful maintenance and 'newness' for most planes in actual service meant the craft were in pretty good shape when active (though spells at 'unimproved' airfields in WW2 might reduce this level fairly quickly, as well as periods of rapid turnaround for multiple missions, and with consequent aircraft losses as a result).  In other words, a beat up or grubby plane is an accident waiting to happen, and it wouldn't wait long!  So when you look at a battered aircraft in a museum, it is important to remember that this is not how the plane looked when it was active, but is either how the plane was found, or the best the museum could afford as far as restoration without replacing original parts (which would certainly have been done in service). This is especially true of 'enemy' aircraft on display, as a lot of them were either tested extensively after capture, and then abandoned for long periods before they were conserved, or they were captured in a 'grounded' state specifically BECAUSE they were too rough to fly safely anymore.

I agree in principle with most of the above but the point I made, and which I assume is being referred to here, is that no machine of war, especially in the cauldron of events such as the Battle of Britain, was in showroom condition.  Yes, they were in tip-top mechanical flying order and hats off the ground crews who kept them that way under very trying circumstances, but these machine's lives were measured in weeks (or less) and except perhaps when on 100 hour inspections would not receive any cosmetic care.  They naturally accumulate scrapes and scratches from booted feet on the wingroots, chipped and scratched paint around the Dzus fastenings on the cowlings, gun panels, fuel caps, and especially the leading edges of the wings, exhaust stains, gunsmoke and oil stains, not to mention the possibility of panels replaced from other aircraft with different states of wear.  Thin aluminium alloy dents very easily and if a slight dent in a cowling is unlikely to affect flight characteristics why bother to repair it?

These are the sort of things that bring life to an aircraft and tell its story and these are what's missing from the restored "Warbirds", a term I despise - let's call them "Showbirds".

Look at most 'camouflaged'  restored aircraft flying today, they're nearly all spotlessly finished in gloss!  Why, because it's easier to maintain and clean - but it's not authentic.

Perhaps it's time we got back to ships, before we get told off....

Michael 

Getting back to ships by, I admit, a circuitous route, I was wondering if it was feasible to 'house' Cutty Sark completely.  The top of her mainmast is 152' above the deck, which is about 46 metres, and if you allow for the height of the deck above the waterline (assuming it's at ground level) you'd be looking at a height of roughly 50 metres.

By coincidence there is a parallel here in Melbourne, albeit a very stationary shot tower, which is about 50 metres in height.  It was built in 1890 and was, at the time, the tallest structure around.  When the site was earmarked for 'development' in the 80's they were told they must restore and retain the shot tower within their plans because it's a heritage-listed building.  So now, right in the middle of a multi-storey shopping complex is this anachronism.  What they've done is create a massive cone structure over a central plaza incorporating the shot tower.

Now, while it certainly preserves the tower and the lower building for posterity it seems to me to be a very artificial existence;

 

The figures abseiling down the tower give you a sense of scale.  Imagine the Cutty Sark in this position - does it work for you?

Michael 

I believe the idea of a glass structure completely enclosing the ship was considered early in the project, and rejected - largely, I imagine, because of the cost.  (In addition to the huge expense of building such a thing in the first place, there would be an enormous annual bill for keeping the interior environmentally right.)  I have to say that, in terms of personal aesthetic taste,  I find it hard to imagine such a structure that I'd find attractive.  (The silhouettes of the structural members would devastate the aesthetics of the ship.)  If the qualified experts on conservation concluded that putting the ship inside a building was the only way to save her, I'd advocate doing it - but unless some architect were to come up with a design that's utterly beyond my imagination (certainly a possibility), I wouldn't like it much.

That's what I was thinking more or less.  The shadows cast by the massive support structure would also play merry hell with the aesthetics, not to mention photographs, you can see it in the centre photo above but I think the bottom one was taken at dusk - the tower is usually banded by the shadows of the dome structure.  A completely unsupported 'bubble' remains a science-fiction dream for now.

Would a geodetic dome, such as those that house the big radar arrays, only clear of course, do it?

Obviously in this case the structure's maintenance is paid for by the shopping centre revenue but it would take an awful lot of 'gifte shoppes' to similarly house CS. 

Michael

AESTHETICS!!!  Look folks, the poor old Cutty Sark has rotted out, rusted, and then burned down, all while in the hands of the 'conservators' just in the past 50 years.  USS Constitution is still in very good shape, and has been AFLOAT for more than 200 years!  Same is true for the British frigate 'HMS Trincomalee,' 'HMS Warrior,' and the Portuguese frigate 'De Fernando.' Seems to me that it is pretty obvious that the only place for a ship, for EVERY reason, aesthetic and otherwise, is IN THE WATER, and efforts to do otherwise truly only lead to disaster......... History is against it, technology is against it, money is against it, and time is against it, even with the very best intentions... 'Domes and gifte shoppes' indeed!  You might as well stuff your old dog and then wonder why it doesn't play fetch anymore!

It may be obvious to you but I have to admit I can't see how any vessel is safer in the water than out of it, any more than an aircraft is safer in the air than on the ground.  My own untrained observations and the many remarks made in this thread seem to suggest otherwise.

Apart from the risks of fire, much harder to tackle in a floating ship, wood rots and iron corrodes in the presence of water and the costs of restoring CS and maintaining her afloat would be astronomical.  I believe the undesirable but necessary compromises to make her safe by modern standards have been covered elsewhere.

Let's face it, it's not going to happen.  In that case a discussion of how best to preserve and display her is apropos. 

Michael 

I agree with MJH. 

I'm not going to bother responding to any more posts from searat12 on this thread.  It should be obvious by now that neither of us is interested in the other's opinions - and anybody following this thread is more than familiar now with what those opinions are.  I suggest - again - that we drop the subject.

Ditto;

Michael 

Please, just one last note...... The Portguese frigate 'De Fernando' was restored recently to floating condition, and what they started off with for the restoration was a lot worse than Cutty Sark is now.  Please have a look at their webpage to get an idea of just how far gone a ship in the water can be, yet still be restored.  There is still hope for Cutty Sark, and because of the fire, it is actually in a better 'starting place' because they can actually get at all the iron frames that nust be replaced/repaired, which they were unable to do previously.  Yes it would be expensive, but when you add up all the costs of they are planning to do now, I think you will find it is not much more, and with a far better result from every perspective... Here's the 'De Fernando' website:

http://www.cidadevirtual.pt/fragata/restoration.html

Gentlemen,

I think this conversation has gone as it can in light of its rather heated nature. Let's agree to disagree and move on.

Cheers, 

I don't think this discussion was 'heated' at all and that all parties behaved impeccably in what I would refer to as a 'robust' exchange of ideas.  If we all agreed with one another this would be a boring place to visit indeed.

I put my ideas forward and learned a good deal about other people's views on the subject and that can't be a bad thing.

Thank you gentlemen - it's been stimulating.

Michael 

Good on ya, MJH!

I seems that the Cutty Sark project will be completed. Check out the web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7471449.stm

I still say that a fraction of that money put towards a new ship that could sail would have been much better spent!  It's like the old Monty Python sketch about 'swamp castle'... "First, when we went to build a castle in a swamp, they said we was daft! 'Nobody could build a castle in a swamp!'  So we built one, just to show 'em! It sank into the swamp... So we built another!  It fell over, then sank into the swamp, so we built another!  And it burnt down, tipped over, and then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one stayed oop!  And one day it will all be yours my son!"

searat12 wrote:

I still say that a fraction of that money put towards a new ship that could sail would have been much better spent!  It's like the old Monty Python sketch about 'swamp castle'... "First, when we went to build a castle in a swamp, they said we was daft! 'Nobody could build a castle in a swamp!'  So we built one, just to show 'em! It sank into the swamp... So we built another!  It fell over, then sank into the swamp, so we built another!  And it burnt down, tipped over, and then sank into the swamp, but the fourth one stayed oop!  And one day it will all be yours my son!"

Wot? The curtains?