Cutty Sark fire turns out to have been caused by vacuum cleaner

Wednesday, 1st October 2008

Written by Kerry Lawler

The fire that almost destroyed London's Cutty Sark was caused by an industrial vacuum cleaner, police announced today.

The Greenwich tourist attraction was undergoing a £25 million refurbishment when it caught fire in May 2007 and almost half of the ship's timber had been removed from the site for restoration. Nevertheless, the blaze caused some £10 million of damage, most of which was the wooden deck of the 19th century clipper; the masts, figurehead and wheel remained undamaged.

At the time, arson was suspected but police revealed today that in fact the fire was caused by a dust extractor, accidentally left on over the preceding weekend. Less than two per cent of the original material of the ship was taken by the fire, say the Cutty Sark Trust although the restoration work has been set back considerably, now due to be completed in the summer of 2010.

"Obviously the fire was a huge setback for us," said Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Trust, "the fire added approximately 10 million pounds to the project costs but we now need in excess of 3 million pounds to complete the final presentation of the ship."

The Cutty Sark was built in 1869 to make the long route to China in the days of the blossoming tea trade, carrying a cargo of tea, spices from India and wool from Australia. It is the last survivor of its kind.

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