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Academics who have spent years working towards the restoration of the Cutty Sark are still hopeful that the Victorian tea clipper and national icon can be restored to its former glory despite this week's devastating blaze.

For the past three years, researchers at Greenwich 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ have been helping the Cutty Sark Trust build a precise digital replica of the ship, which has been used to test the safest way to restore the vessel without damaging it.

Chris Bailey, professor of computational mechanics at Greenwich 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ, said: "The key question now is what damage did the fire cause to the iron structure?"