.gif)
HMS Victory (1737)
Encyclopedia
- For the museum shipMuseum shipA museum ship, or sometimes memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public, for educational or memorial purposes...
at PortsmouthPortsmouthPortsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
on which Admiral NelsonHoratio Nelson, 1st Viscount NelsonHoratio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronté, KB was a flag officer famous for his service in the Royal Navy, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. He was noted for his inspirational leadership and superb grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics, which resulted in a number of...
was killed during the Battle of TrafalgarBattle of TrafalgarThe Battle of Trafalgar was a sea battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French Navy and Spanish Navy, during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars ....
, see HMS VictoryHMS VictoryHMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, laid down in 1759 and launched in 1765. She is most famous as Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805....
.
HMS Victory was a 100-gun first-rate
First-rate
First rate was the designation used by the Royal Navy for its largest ships of the line. While the size and establishment of guns and men changed over the 250 years that the rating system held sway, from the early years of the eighteenth century the first rates comprised those ships mounting 100...
ship of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, built to the dimensions of the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment
1719 Establishment
The 1719 Establishment was the first formal 'Establishment' laid down to govern the construction of all ships built or rebuilt down to those of 20 carriage guns, whether in the Royal Dockyards or by commercial contractors...
at Portsmouth Dockyard, and launched on 23 February 1737.
Construction
A small number of the timberTimber
Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...
s used in the construction of Victory were taken from the remains of the previous , which had caught fire and been burnt to the waterline in February 1721 whilst having weed burned from her bottom (in a process called "breaming"). Officially a rebuild of the previous vessel, the new Victory was built by master shipwright Joseph Allin and cost £38,239 to assemble, plus £12,652 fitting as a flagship. Launched in 1737 she became the flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
of the Channel Fleet
Channel Fleet
The Channel Fleet was the Royal Navy formation of warships that defended the waters of the English Channel from 1690 to 1909.-History:The Channel Fleet dates back at least to 1690 when its role was to defend England against the French threat under the leadership of Edward Russell, 1st Earl of...
under Sir John Norris
John Norris (admiral)
Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Norris was a British naval officer of the 17th and 18th centuries, who served as Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy under George II.-Early career:...
following completion in 1740. She was the last British First Rate to be armed entirely with bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
.
The Victory was "a high-sided ship for her draught and this was believed to have made her leewardly and to have led to her loss". The term "leewardly" means she had a tendency to be pushed to leeward (down wind) more than normal when sailing with the wind on a quarter or on the beam, making her hard to keep on course. A plan of the ship reproduced in Howard and an extant contemporary model also show her with four rows of lights (stern galleries) and three quarter galleries, one more of each than was usual for an English three-decker in any period.
Loss of Victory
She was wrecked with the loss of her entire crew while returning to EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Balchen
John Balchen
Admiral Sir John Balchen was an officer of the British Royal Navy with a long and distinguished career during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In the course of his service at sea, Balchen saw action in numerous battles against the French and Spanish navies across 60 years and three...
after relieving Sir Charles Hardy
Charles Hardy
Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Hardy was a Royal Navy officer and colonial governor of New York.-Early career:Born at Portsmouth, the son of a vice admiral, Charles Hardy joined the Royal Navy as a volunteer in 1731....
, who had been blockaded in the Tagus
Tagus
The Tagus is the longest river on the Iberian Peninsula. It is long, in Spain, along the border between Portugal and Spain and in Portugal, where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean at Lisbon. It drains an area of . The Tagus is highly utilized for most of its course...
estuary
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
by the French Brest fleet. As the fleet reached the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
on 3 October 1744 it was scattered by a large storm
Storm
A storm is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere, especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying severe weather...
. At around 15:30 on 4 October, the ships accompanying Victory lost sight of her near the Channel Islands
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
. For over 260 years she was believed to have been wrecked during the night on Black Rock just off the Casquets
Casquets
Les Casquets or Casquets is a group of rocks 13 km northwest of Alderney and are part of an underwater sandstone ridge. Other parts which emerge above the water are the islets of Burhou and Ortac. Little vegetation grows on them...
, with the loss of her entire complement.
Frigates were dispatched across the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
to search for her where she had last been seen wallowing on the horizon on 4 October. Eventually, Captain Thomas Grenville of HMS Falkland
HMS Falkland (1696)
HMS Falkland was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Holland of New Castle, New Hampshire, and purchased by the navy in 1696....
landed at Guernsey
Guernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.The Bailiwick, as a governing entity, embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, Burhou, and Lihou and their islet...
in the Channel Islands to provision, and there heard from locals that wreckage and part of a topmast had washed up on the island's shores. Further investigation proved that the wreckage had indeed come from Victory, which was believed to have run into the Casquets
Casquets
Les Casquets or Casquets is a group of rocks 13 km northwest of Alderney and are part of an underwater sandstone ridge. Other parts which emerge above the water are the islets of Burhou and Ortac. Little vegetation grows on them...
, a group of rocks nearby. Other wreckage was washed up on Jersey
Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and...
and Alderney
Alderney
Alderney is the most northerly of the Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The area is , making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, and the second largest in the Bailiwick...
, whose inhabitants had heard distress guns the night before the wreck but were unable to provide aid in the severe storm. No trace of any of the 1,150 sailors aboard Victory was found until the wreck was discovered in 2008.
Finding of wreck
On 1 February 2009, the Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that Odyssey Marine Exploration
Odyssey Marine Exploration
Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. is an American company engaged in the salvage of deep-water shipwrecks. Odyssey salvaged the US Civil War era shipwreck of the SS Republic in 2003 and recovered over 50,000 coins and 14,000 artifacts from the site nearly 1,700 feet deep...
, based in Tampa, Florida
Tampa, Florida
Tampa is a city in the U.S. state of Florida. It serves as the county seat for Hillsborough County. Tampa is located on the west coast of Florida. The population of Tampa in 2010 was 335,709....
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, claimed to have found the wreck in May 2008, and has recovered two of the one hundred bronze cannons. Located in the Western Approaches between England and France, as a military wreck she legally remains the property of the British Government under the laws of marine salvage
Marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
. The wreck was found "more than 80 km (43 nm) from where anybody would have thought it went down", according to Odyssey Marine Exploration CEO Gregg Stemm, and 100 m (330 ft) deep, meaning that the vessel had not foundered on the Casquets as had been surmised, but lay approximately at latitude 49°42.5' N and
longitude 3°33.3' W. The team announced their findings publicly on 2 February and stated that they were negotiating with the British government over the wreckage. On 26 March 2009, the TV show Treasure Quest
Treasure Quest (TV series)
Treasure Quest is a one-hour weekly American documentary reality television series that premiered on January 15, 2009 on the Discovery Channel. The program follows the employees of Odyssey Marine Exploration...
, which had followed the company's ship Odyssey Explorer exploring several different shipwreck sites, aired two hours of footage of the Odyssey Explorers initial findings of the ship. The show included footage of the Odyssey Explorers crew finding a 42 pounder cannon that initially essentially identified the wreck as the Victory. The crew raised a 42 pounder cannon and a 12 pounder cannon.
External links
- Press release on discovery from Odyssey Marine Exploration
- Video of the discovery from Treasure Quest on Discovery Channel
- The wreck of HMS Victory on www.wrecksite.eu