London, May 20 (ANI): Descendants of shipbuilders, sailors and captains who had worked on the Cutty Sark are set to gather on board the famous tea clipper, to attend a reunion of families who have been involved in the vessel's history.
The Cutty Sark, designed by Hercules Linton was the fastest vessel of its time, capable of even outrunning the more advanced steam ships that had begun to take to the seas.
Researchers have traced 400 living descendants of crew members, captains and shipwrights who worked on the Cutty Sark, and at least 170 of them, will be brought together for the first time on board the vessel at an event to mark the completion of an five year restoration of the ship, reports The Telegraph.
"It is going to be like a giant family gathering of people I didn't know existed," Kennedy Clark, 20, one of the living descendants, was quoted, as saying.
"It is incredibly exciting. The Cutty Sark has always been important in our family and as I grew up I started to understand why there were so many pictures of clipper ships on our walls," she added.
In many cases, those attending were completely unaware of their link to one of the most famous vessels in British maritime history, while others have proudly celebrated their family ties to the 143-year-old ship.
The work to track down the descendants was commissioned by HSBC, who are sponsoring the Cutty Sark, to mark the reopening of the famous vessel to the public at its dry dock in Greenwich, southeast London, following a 50 million pound restoration project.
It took nearly three months for genealogist Caroline Gurney to trace the families of those who worked on the Cutty Sark.
"It has been quite an exciting and challenging piece of work," she said.
"Every person we looked at had an interesting story, and there were people scattered all over the world from Canada to New Zealand and China to Zimbabwe," she added. (ANI)
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