#The cutty Sark has
been on public display at G
Following in the wake of the original globetrotters at peak
of its powers, more than 80 percent of the world’s big ships were constructed
on clydeside in Glasgow. These vessels
ventured out into a fast-expanding world to establish trade links and help
shape global events-for better or worse.
For this four-part series, Glasgow-born actor David Hayman
follows the divergent courses of a quartet of the city’s finest. He travels to
Nova Scotia, from where CS Mackay-Bennet played a major role in establishing
the transatlantic underwater cable network, and was also tasked with retrieving
bodies fro m the Titanic.
In Bermuda, David dives the ghostly remains of the Nola,
which sank en route to North California in 1863. She was one of the notorious
‘blockade runners’-super quick paddle steamers that resupplied the confederate
South in the American Civil War, perpetuating the conflict by an estimated two years.
But there’s little doubting the Clyde’s most famous
creation. The Cutty Sark was built to compete in the tea races to China, and
later led the way in the burgeoning wool trade with Australia-recording the
then-fastest time for a Sydney to London voyage of 73 days.
‘She’s a thing of extraordinary beauty,’ says David. ‘When
she was damaged by fire in Greenwich in 2007, the emotional reaction of the
public really showed the esteem in which she is held.’ Watchout for David
trying his hand at shearing in australia.
