months later on 30 July 1869. Willis had been an experienced shipmaster in his father's business and now was also an experienced ship owner on his own account. How Willis found and selected Scott & Linton to design and build a state of the art extreme clipper is not known. Linton certainly had many contacts made through his career as a respected surveyor and probably also did design work as surveyors often did at that time. Linton's experience gained at Alexander Hall & Sons probably contributed to his design skills. On the surface it seems Willis must have been taking a risk but he used all his business experience to negotiate an agreement which provided a high degree of protection. Willis with his practical experience also approved the drawings and specifications. The agreement provided for a payment of a deposit to Scott & Linton upon signature followed by seven stage payments as the construction progressed. However, there were also penalty clauses. Cutty Sark was contracted for at a price of £17 per ton but if the tonnage exceeded 950 tons there would be no extra payment. The price of £17 per ton was extremely competitive and given the total lack of experience in building a composite clipper ship of anything close to the size and complexity of Cutty Sark makes one wonder how the price was calculated to win the order and yet still make a profit. The completed vessel was to be delivered by 30 July 1869 with a penalty of £5 per day to be paid by Scott & Linton for every day of delay unless the delays were due to changes in specification or labour strikes. If Scott and Linton were unable to complete then Willis had the right to enter the yard and finish the work paying for materials out of the withheld stage payments. Cutty Sark was to be built to Lloyd's A1 classification and in addition to the regular visits from the Lloyd's surveyors, Willis had one of his experienced skippers, Captain George Moodie, superintend the construction prior to taking command of Cutty Sark upon completion. Captain Moodie was said to be very particular regarding the quality of the materials used in the construction and only accepted the best quality materials and workmanship which all added to the cost (this may have contributed to why the Cutty Sark is still in existence today). During