Cutty Sark Re-Opening Postponed

The tea clipper Cutty Sark, scheduled to re-open in 2010, will remain closed to the public for nine months longer than expected. Cutty Sark Trust chief executive Richard Doughty said he was "confident" the 19th century vessel would re-open in spring 2011, well ahead of the Olympics and an expected influx of tourists, though visitors will get a glimpse of the ship from next year when the boards surrounding it are taken down. Two and a half years have passed since the ship was gutted (or "destroyed" as a certain distraught blog prematurely put it) when a overheated vacuum cleaner sparked a fire; luckily much of the original timber and rigging had been removed for preservation work, and the iron frame survived mostly intact, though the flames did fuel an additional £15 million onto the conservation costs. We're bloody lucky to still have the thing at all, really, so a nine-month delay shouldn't be of too much concern.