India's transport minister, Nitin Gadkari has been in London this week. I have been invited to a dinner in his honour on Cutty Sark. The famous ship was built on the River Clyde in 1869 as one of the last and fastest tea clippers. With the opening of the Suez Canal, also in 1869, steamships could benefit from the shorter route from China to Great Britain, so Cutty Sark was transferred to the wool trade from Australia. Improvements to steam technology meant that steamships gradually dominated the longer route to the Antipodes, and the sailing ship was sold for cargo and then training duties. Sixty years ago it was sent to a permanent drydock in Greenwich, London, as part of the National Historic Fleet.
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