Shipshape for the future

May 20 2008 Evening Gazette

THE success of the £35m Cutty Sark restoration project, which reaches a critical phase this year, will rest - quite literally - on the expertise of Tees Valley engineers.

Design and construction engineers at Cleveland Bridge, Darlington, and Consteel Technical Services at Saltburn, are working on plans to lift the clipper - once the fastest in the commercial fleet - 2.7m off its dry dock at Greenwich and rest the 138-year-old timbers on a Corus steel cradle. It will allow visitors to view the extraordinary hull design for the first time when the ship reopens to the public in 2010.

Mark Brown project manager for Cleveland Bridge, which will be involved in lifting the 668t hull, said it was a prestigious contract for the company to win. “It’s quite a challenging project and there’s a lot of detailed engineering work involved. We certainly can’t afford to drop it!” he said.

Ken Clewes, managing director of structural steel drawing and surveying company Consteel, which has been involved in a number of high-profile projects in the UK and the USA, said: “It’s one of the more unusual for us. I’ve spent time working on different vessels over the years on different sizes of ships but this is something unique.”

The requirement for a “subtle” steel structure to cradle the entire length of the 280ft hull was a challenge, admitted Mr Brown. The steel will be fabricated in sections and transported to Greenwich for lifting into place by 2009.

Eventually, visitors will be able to inspect the hull from an underwater atrium constructed as part of the £35m Heritage Lottery-funded project, making it an internationally important visitor attraction. A further £3.72m is still needed by the Cutty Sark Trust to complete the work.

Last May, restoration of the clipper suffered a major blow when fire ripped through the ship’s decks, destroying the building structures, services and tools, adding another £10m to the cost.

It was not the first time the ship, whose time spent on the China tea run was short but memorable, had suffered calamity.

The original shipbuilder went bust before completion and the opening of the Suez Canal curtailed her career as a tea clipper just nine years after she began. Her 34 sails covering 32,000 sq ft had helped her reach top speeds of 17 knots, making her the faster clipper of her day.

Built on an iron frame, the majority of the wooden planks have already been removed for treatment, reducing the weight the engineers must allow for from 963t to 668t.

Consteel’s next major project will take it back to the States where it will prepare drawings for the auditorium at Kansas City’s Kaufman Performance Centre. It was previously involved in the Brian Lara cricket academy stadium in Trinidad and the control tower for Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Cleveland Bridge was recently nominated for an award for its work on the Surtees Bridge.