May 21, 2007

• Just heard this on the news - feel incredibly sad - especially that someone could be so stupid as to start this fire ...
• By Harry they'll pay for this outrage!
• This is absolutely heart-breaking. I'm looking at areal pictures right now. The damage is terrible... I just hope the frame is intact enough to restore. Cutty Sark is a cathedral. Actually, she's like a cathedral would be if all the other cathedrals had been broken up and used to build shopping malls and she was the last one. This is absolutely terrible news.
• I was really shocked when I heard about this. I can't imagine how this can have happened.
• Was reading in the Guardian this morning that they're saying it may not be beyond restoring.
• Their website is down now.
• The Cutty Sark's, not the Guardian's...
• If this is arson, as the police currently suspect, then keel-hauling is the only fitting punishment. Luckily, the ship is already under restoration, and half the cladding was in storage elsewhere.
• Damn.
• How heart-breaking! This is the last great tea clipper left IN THE WORLD, a relic of a more graceful age, and a truly stunning craft. I agree with Skrik--keel-hauling would be quite appropriate should the blaze be human-caused. My home is filled with 19th-century marine antiques; I have mast hoops, hatch covers, binnacles and pre-electrification fresnels everywhere, and was raised by an old sailor who made sure we toured every remaining tall ship open for visitors, wherever we traveled. By far, the Sark was the most heartbreakingly lovely evocation of that lost period. I nearly wept on reading this piece of news this morning... but I take heart that the curators of same claim to be undaunted. Here's to the preservation of what was to give perspective to what will be...
• .
• I noted a typical British optimism about the state of the damage - of the order of "It's only a flesh wound, guvna". She'll be back up and clipping tea before the crumpets are buttered!
• At least the planking and masts had already been removed, so any reno job will maybe sorta look original... Crap. Fucking savages. .
• fwiw, the fire was being investigated as arson as a matter of course, due to procedural . . matters that authorities must . . do . . with the things and stuff. It could be accidental. And of course it's a shame. And in the place of an optimistic toast, a tagline: MonkeyFilter: binnacles and pre-electrification fresnels everywhere
• This is very saddening
• Keel-hauling, hell. I've got a yardarm and a length of rope that'll do nicely. I hope they can save the hull, at least, to rebuild from. Sadly the "modern" technology of the time meant that they built the wooden hull around an iron frame, which may well have warped from the heat of the blaze.
• Honestly, though, through a man from the pub who knows about this stuff, most of the ship was away being renovated at the time it was burning, so it's only the state of the cast iron frame we need worry about.
• Yeah: half the planking, plus the masts, spars and rigging, are being stored elsewhere. Which is good.
• Here's hoping she sails again, mate.
• real life
• When my younger daughter was younger she used to think it was the Cutie Shark.
• That is so the name of my next band.
• How many bands you got lined up there, now, Cappie?