Clipper Adelaide on her way home

She is five years older than the Cutty Sark (which is just out of the picture on the left). The world's oldest clipper - or what remains of her -  is in Greenwich getting ready to be towed to Australia. Despite her name, The City of Adelaide was built in Sunderland in 1864. She sank in Glasgow in 1991, and after being recovered was taken to the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine, where she has been ever since. There was a campaign to keep her in Britain at her birthplace, led by the Sunderland City of Adelaide Recovery Fund. But last month she was bought by an Australian Charity set up to take her half way round the world as a tourist attraction.

The ship is Grade I listed, but there has been no attempt by HMRC to stop her export, unlike the George Stubbs' painting of a kangaroo, currently the subject of a fund-raising campaign by the National Maritime Museum to stop it being purchased by the National Gallery of Australia.