Fire crews fight blaze on London's Cutty Sark ship

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) British fire crews are battling a blaze on the Cutty Sark, the famous 19th-century tea clipper moored as a tourist attraction in south east London, a fire service spokesman said today.

''There is substantial damage,'' a London Fire Brigade spokesman said. ''We've got eight fire engines and 40 firefighters there.'' There were no reports of any injuries.

Television pictures showed the ship well ablaze with flames leaping high into the air. Eyewitness Bruno Mahsoudi described seeing ''massive flames'' coming from the ship.

The ship, launched in 1869 on Scotland's river Clyde to make the run to China for the tea trade, was undergoing a 25 million pounds (49.31 million dollars) refurbishment.

Built in 1869 by Scott&Linton, Dumbarton, the Cutty Sark was one of the world's only surviving fast tea clippers.

The London landmark swapped the high seas for a concrete dry dock in Greenwich on the banks of the River Thames 50 years ago.

Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, the body overseeing the work, said the fire may have been started deliberately.

''All I know is that it is being treated as a suspicious fire at the moment,'' he told BBC television. ''It is just unbelievable. We are losing history.'' He said half of the ship's timbers had been removed for renovation before the fire.

REUTERS AGL ND1244