London's Cutty Sark ship gutted by blaze

LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) The Cutty Sark, a famous London landmark and thought to be the world's last surviving 19th century tea clipper, was severely damaged in a blaze today, the British fire service said.

Flames and thick black smoke shot high into the sky above the dry dock on the banks of the River Thames where the boat has stood for more than 50 years.

Forty firefighters brought the blaze under control. Aerial television pictures showed a mass of charred timbers on the deck of the boat that was once one of the world's fastest ships.

''There is substantial damage,'' a London Fire Brigade spokesman said. There were no reports of any injuries.

Eyewitness Bruno Mahsoudi described seeing ''massive flames'' coming from the ship.

The Cutty Sark swapped the high seas for a concrete dry dock in Greenwich, home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), where it became a major tourist attraction.

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

Richard Doughty, chief executive of the Cutty Sark Trust, the body overseeing the renovation 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.

Originally designed to last just 30 years, the ship is a rare construction with a wrought iron frame clad in timber.

Although built for the tea trade, it was switched to fetching wool from Australia to feed England's mills, regularly recording the fastest time for the voyage from Australia to Britain.

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