The gutted wreck of famous tea clipper The Cutty Sark will be rebuilt and relaunched within one year the Cutty Sark Restoration Society has today pledged.
As the most popular model built by small schoolboys and grown men in the UK the Society is requesting every matchstick model to be handed in to the Societies headquarters in an attempt to reconstruct the original design.
A spokesman commented, "We are certain we can capture the original features by studying the hundreds of replicas which exist up and down the country."
Once the tea clipper is rebuilt to the highest standard it will be relaunched and renamed the " Sooty Carcass" as officials feel the best way to keep the rebuilt national Treasure safe is to refloat her on the high seas.
Prince Philip today visited the wreck kept in a dry dock at Greenwich in south-east London and exclaimed, " It's a bit bloody black isn't it?"
