With thousands of square feet of canvas capturing every breath of the trade winds, a 19th-century tea clipper was the absolute pinnacle of sailing evolution. The Cutty Sark was just such a ship, carrying tea and then wool across the far-flung outposts of the British Empire. The Cutty Sark gained the record as the fastest ship in the world in the 1880s thanks to its sleek design and 32 sails. This literal speed merchant could breeze past the very latest steamships, but the age of sail was coming to an end as steam engine technology improved. Today Cutty Sark, fully restored after a 50-year career at sea, is a museum on the River Thames.

Clippers were ships of the 18th and 19th centuries, specifically built for speed. With slim, streamlined hulls and an absolute forest of masts and sails, clippers carried cargo across the Atlantic Ocean and up and down the east coast of the United States. The clippers broke all speed records and began to be used for much longer runs, particularly across the British Empire. Clippers carried commodities like opium, wool, and, most famously, tea.

The largest producers of tea in the mid-19th century were India and China, and the demand in Britain and its colonies was practically insatiable. A competitive tradition arose between importers as to which could ship the first tea of the season to British merchants in London. With tea the height of fashion, wealthy customers were willing to pay high prices to enjoy the drink before everyone else. Import companies could make a killing in sales if they could get just a few days ahead of their rivals. As speed became the absolute priority, clippers were crewed and captained by the very best seamen available. The press covered the clippers' voyages, and people even laid bets on which particular clipper would arrive home first. The Cutty Sark was one such tea clipper.

The Cutty Sark was a latecomer to the tea trade, indeed, by the time it first set sail in February 1870, destination Shanghai, the tea trade had already been turned upside down by the opening of the Suez Canal the year before. No longer necessary to round the Cape of Good Hope, the clippers faced stiff competition from rival ships that had a 3,000-mile shorter voyage. Fortunately for the Cutty Sark and its contemporaries, the winds around the Suez Canal were unpredictable, unlike the trade winds the clippers harnessed with their giant sails. Time may have been running out, but the Cutty Sark still had a chance to make history, and tea was still big business: Britain imported 28 million kilograms of tea in 1869 alone.

Cutty Sark was constructed in Dumbarton, Scotland, and it was built for one thing only: speed. The name of the ship comes from a poem by Robert Burns, Tam O'Shanter, where it refers to a curious short shirt worn by a witch. The ship had an iron-framed hull covered with East India teak and American rock elm. Over 280 ft (85 m) in length, the three-masted ship was immensely strong and decidedly slim and sleek with its distinctive sharp bow. Any clipper was a breathtaking sight when all its sails were unfurled, and the Cutty Sark was no exception, or rather, it was the exception since the ship's reinforced hull allowed it to carry more canvas than other ships ever dared set. The Cutty Sark could hoist 32,000 square feet (3,000 m²) of sail. With over 11 miles (17.7 km) of wire rigging to keep in order, it took an expert crew to manage the ship in high winds. The Cutty Sark's top speed was 17.5 knots, 2.5 better than the average contemporary steamer.

The Cutty Sark's specialty was carrying goods like wine, spirits, and beer from Britain, and then, on the run home, tea from China. Cutty Sark's hold could carry an impressive 10,000 tea chests. Such a cargo of tea would today be worth around $8 million. But the Suez Canal was by now allowing steamships from China to arrive in London fully ten days before the clippers could. It was for this reason that the Cutty Sark made only eight tea trips. World trade, as it has done so often before and since, had shifted with the times.

The ship's owners were loath to lose their investment on such a high-speed vessel, and so the Cutty Sark switched to alternative trade routes where competition was less fierce. Although as fast as ever, it was not all plain sailing. An infamous mutiny in 1880 while crossing the Java Sea led to the Cutty Sark's captain being driven to despair and diving overboard, where he was promptly eaten by sharks. In 1883, the Cutty Sark switched routes again, this time to carry wool from Australia. The Cutty Sark could make it back to London 25 days quicker than any other ship on this route. In 1886, the ship sped from Sydney to London in a record 73 days. To get the record, the clipper's captain had sailed much further south than was usual, risking the treacherous but beneficial winds of the roaring forties and the odd iceberg, but nobody cared much about that, except perhaps the insurers. The Cutty Sark had been built for just such records.

Steam power was evolving faster than ever, and by the 1890s, clippers like the Cutty Sark began to be retired from the more hectic trade routes. A Portuguese company bought the Cutty Sark, and it was renamed Ferreira and then Maria do Amparo. The clipper continued to carry trade goods, this time across the Portuguese Empire. Still in service into the 20th century, the ship avoided being sunk by submarines in WWI, but time and heavy seas were literally wearing the old ship out.

A rather dilapidated Cutty Sark returned permanently to Britain when it was bought by Captain Wilfred Dowman, who restored it to its former glory in 1923 and gave the ship its famous name back. Serving as a cadet training ship and general curiosity, Dowman bequeathed Cutty Sark to the Thames Nautical Training College. Public money helped the Cutty Sark Preservation Society again restore the ship in the 1950s. A fire in 2007 meant another round of restoration, but the great clipper, today a fixed museum on the Thames at Greenwich, still retains 90% of its original hull material. Although now stuck forever in its concrete dry dock, the Cutty Sark effortlessly conveys its potential for speed, a potent reminder of the lost magnificence of the golden age of sail.