Montague Dawson, F.R.S.A., R.S.M.A. (Chiswick 1895-1973 Midhurst)

Thermopylae, 947 tons, was built for George Thompson & Co. of London by Walter Hood of Aberdeen in 1868. A splendid seaboat, she acquired her reputation for speed on her maiden voyage - a record run from Gravesend to Melbourne in 60 days - and thereafter lived up to this promise throughout her career, first in the China tea trade and then on the Australian wool run. Eventually bought by the Portuguese government in 1896 for use as a training ship, she was renamed Pedro Nunes but only survived until 1907 when she was sunk as a derelict. Considered by many to have been the fastest clipper of them all, some experts believed her to have been the fastest commercial sailing vessel ever launched; whatever the truth of these claims, she was - and has remained - one of the legends of the age of sail.