剑桥雅思13Test4阅读passage1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage 1 below.

Cutty Sark: the fastest sailing ship of all time“

卡蒂萨克”号:史上最快的帆船

The nineteenth century was a period of great technological development in Britain, and for shipping the major changes were from wind to steam power, and from wood to iron and steel

19世纪英国经历了重大的科技发展,就航运而言,最主要的改变是从依靠风力到依靠蒸汽驱动,以前用木材造船,而现在用钢铁。

The fastest commercial sailing vessels of all time were clippers, three-masted ships built to transport goods around the world, although some also took passengers. From the 1840s until 1869, when the Suez Canal opened and steam propulsion was replacing sail, clippers dominated world trade. Although many were built, only one has survived more or less intact: Cutty Sark, now on display in Greenwich, southeast London.

历史上最快的商业帆船曾经是快速帆船,这是一种三桅帆船,用于世界各地的货物运输,当然也有部分用于客运。从19世纪40年代开始,快速帆船一直在世界贸易中占据主导地位,直至1869年苏伊士运河开通,蒸汽开始取代风帆作为动力。尽管当时制造出许多帆船,但是只有一艘被完整保存下来——那就是“卡蒂萨克”号,它目前陈列在位于伦敦东南部的格林尼治。

Cutty Sark's unusual name comes from the poem Tam O ’Shanter by the Scottish poet Robert Bums. Tam, a farmer, is chased by a witch called Nannie, who is wearing a 'cutty sark’ - an old Scottish name for a short nightdress. The witch is depicted in Cutty Sark’s figurehead - the carving of a woman typically at the front of old sailing ships. In legend, and in Bums，s poem, witches cannot cross water, so this was a rather strange choice of name for a ship.

“卡蒂萨克”号这个不同寻常的名字来源于苏格兰诗人 Robert Burns的作品Tam O'shanter。一个叫Tam的农民被女巫南妮 Nannie追赶,她穿着一件 Cutty Sark(苏格兰语意为短衫)“卡蒂萨克”号船头的雕像正是女巫 Nannie--传统帆船的前面通常装饰看个女人的雕像。在 Burns歌描述的传说中,女巫无法穿越河流,因此帆船采用这个名字非常奇怪。

Cutty Sark was built in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1869, for a shipping company owned by John Willis. To carry out construction, Willis chose a new shipbuilding firm, Scott & Linton, and ensured that the contract with them put him in a very strong position. In the end, the firm was forced out of business, and the ship was finished by a competitor.

“卡蒂萨克”号于1869年在苏格兰的登巴顿建成,服役于 John willis拥有的船运公司为了进行造船, Willis选择了一家新的造船厂,即 Scott& Linton造船厂,并与他们签订合同以确保自己的有利地位。最终,该公司被迫停业,因此这艘船由它的对手完工。

Willis’s company was active in the tea trade between China and Britain, where speed could bring shipowners both profits and prestige, so Cutty Sark was designed to make the journey more quickly than any other ship. On her maiden voyage, in 1870, she set sail from London, carrying large amounts of goods to China. She returned laden with tea, making the journey back to London in four months. However, Cutty Sark never lived up to the high expectations of her owner, as a result of bad winds and various misfortunes. On one occasion, in 1872，the ship and a rival clipper, Thermopylae, left port in China on the same day. Crossing the Indian Ocean, Cutty Sark gained a lead of over 400 miles, but then her rudder was severely damaged in stormy seas, making her impossible to steer. The ship’s crew had the daunting task of repairing the rudder at sea, and only succeeded at the second attempt. Cutty Sark reached London a week after Thermopylae.

Wili的公司在中英之间的茶贸易活动中十分活跃,那时船只的速度可为航运商带来利益和声望,因此“卡蒂萨克”号的设计速度要比其他帆船快很多。1870年,“卡蒂萨克号首航从伦敦出发,运载了大批货物驶往中国。返航时,船上載满了荼叶,耗时四个月抵达伦敦。然而,由于暴风雨的袭击和各种厄运,“卡蒂萨克”号始终没能达成主人的期望、1872年,有一次“卡蒂萨克”号和劲敌“塞莫皮莱”号( Thermopylae)同一天离开中国港口。在印度洋上,“卡蒂萨克”号领先了400英里,但在一场特大风暴的衮击中,它的船舵严重受损,船只无法继续前行。船员在海上修航的任务十分艰巨,在第二次修舵时才成功“卡蒂萨克”号抵达英国时比“塞葜皮築”号晚了一个星期。

Steam ships posed a growing threat to clippers, as their speed and cargo capacity increased. In addition, the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869，the same year that Cutty Sark was launched, had a serious impact. While steam ships could make use of the quick, direct route between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, the canal was of no use to sailing ships, which needed the much stronger winds of the oceans, and so had to sail a far greater distance. Steam ships reduced the journey time between Britain and China by approximately two months.

随着蒸汽船的速度和承载能力的提高,它们逐渐对帆船造成威胁、此外,1869年苏伊士运河通航,即“卡蒂萨克”号正式服役的同一年,运河的开通对帆船也造成严重影响。虽然蒸汽船可利用地中海和红海之间的直线快速航线,但运河对帆船却毫无用处,因为它们需要强劲的海风驱动,因此必须航行更远的距离。旅汽船使英国和中国之间的航行时间减少了大约两个月。

By 1878, tea traders weren’t interested in Cutty Sark, and instead, she took on the much less prestigious work of carrying any cargo between any two ports in the world. In 1880, violence aboard the ship led ultimately to the replacement of the captain with an incompetent drunkard who stole the crew’s wages. He was suspended from service, and a new captain appointed. This marked a turnaround and the beginning of the most successful period in Cutty Sark's working life, transporting wool from Australia to Britain. One such journey took just under 12 weeks, beating every other ship sailing that year by around a month.

到1878年时,茶商们已经对“卡蒂萨克”号失去了兴趣,相反,它开始承担一些不那么光彩的工作,在世界上随便两个港口之间运输各种货物、1880年,船上发生的暴力事件最终导致了船长的更换,原船长是一个无能的醉汉,他偷走了船员的工资。将他停职后,又任命了一位新的船长。这标志着一次转机,也标志着“卡蒂萨克”号开启了一生中最辉煌的时期,它开始从澳大利亚向英国运输羊毛。往返一次的时间不到12周,在当年领先所有船只1个月的时间。

The ship’s next captain, Richard Woodget, was an excellent navigator, who got the best out of both his ship and his crew. As a sailing ship, Cutty Sark depended on the strong trade winds of the southern hemisphere, and Woodget took her further south than any previous captain, bringing her dangerously close to icebergs off the southern tip of South America. His gamble paid off, though, and the ship was the fastest vessel in the wool trade for ten years.

“卡蒂萨克”号的下一任船长 Richard Woodget是一位出色的航海家,他充分利用了卡蒂萨克”号和所有船员。作为一艘帆船,“卡蒂萨克”号依靠南半球强大的信风才能航行。与其他船长相比, Woodget把她带到了前任船长们没到过的更南方,把她带到了险恶的南美洲南端的冰山附近。但他的赌博获得了回报,使“卡蒂萨克”号成为往后十年羊毛行业中最快的运输船。

As competition from steam ships increased in the 1890s, and Cutty Sark approached the end of her life expectancy, she became less profitable. She was sold to a Portuguese firm, which renamed her Ferreira. For the next 25 years, she again carried miscellaneous cargoes around the world.

随着19世纪90年代来自蒸汽船的竞争,“卡蒂萨克”号到达了生命的终点,她变得不那么赚钱了。她被卖给了一家葡萄牙公司,改名为“‘费雷拉”号。在随后的25年中,她再次在全世界运送着杂七杂八的货物。

Badly damaged in a gale in 1922, she was put into Falmouth harbour in southwest England, for repairs. Wilfred Dowman, a retired sea captain who owned a training vessel, recognised her and tried to buy her, but without success. She returned to Portugal and was sold to another Portuguese company. Dowman was determined, however, and offered a high price: this was accepted, and the ship returned to Falmouth the following year and had her original name restored.

1922年,她在一场大风中严重受损,便转入位于英格兰西南部的法尔茅斯港口进行修理。拥有训练船的一位退休船长 Wilfred dowman认出了这就是“卡蒂萨克”号,试图收购她未果。之后,她又被送到葡萄牙,卖给另一家葡萄牙公司。然而, Dowman下定决心提出了更高的收购价格:最终对方接受了这个价格。于是第二年她又被运送到法尔茅斯恢复了最初的名字。

Dowman used Cutty Sark as a training ship, and she continued in this role after his death. When she was no longer required, in 1954, she was transferred to dry dock at Greenwich to go on public display. The ship suffered from fire in 2007, and again, less seriously, in 2014, but now Cutty Sark attracts a quarter of a million visitors a year.

Dowman把她作为一艘训练船使用,在他死后她也一直担任这个角色。在她失去作用以后,1954年她被转入格林尼治区的干船坞公开陈列。该船于2007年遭遇了一场严重的火灾,2014年又遭遇一场小火灾,而现在“卡蒂萨克”号每年吸引了25万的游客前来参观。

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