Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. The most famous of all tea clippers, the Cutty Sark is today preserved for posterity at a dry dock in Greenwich. Built to transport tea from China, she was designed by Hercules Linton, whose ambition it was to outstrip the Thermopylae, the fastest ship of the times.