Among the most famous old sailing ships still extant, Cutty Sark was one of the last clippers built for the China tea trade. Ordered by Captain John Willis of London, her hull was of composite construction, with teak planking on iron frames. Even though she lost one of her most dramatic encounters with her main rival, Thermopylae, she still acquired the admiration of London, for the persistence of her crew. She completed a 16,000-mile journey in 119 days, by no means an illustrious feat; the admiration was the inventiveness of her crew in building makeshift rudders twice, as she had lost her rudder in severe gales. In 1952, the Cutty Sark Preservation Society came together under the auspices of Frank Carr, director of the National Maritime Museum. Finally, in1954, she was opened as a museum at Greenwich.