In Portmouth there is a fake ship, not the Nelson ship itself, made in 1916 for the Museum.
“From January 12, 1922 to the present, in the city of Portsmouth, in the Maritime Historical Museum, there is an exact copy of the famous battleship, which personifies the centuries-old glory and victory of Britain in the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Russian sailors also took part.
http://korabley.net/news/samoe_izvestnoe_parusnoe_sudno_britanii_klassicheskij_linkor_victory/2009-10-23-395
And here is a repost of the photo report, from which it is clearly visible that this is a completely new ship.
Original taken from book_bukv
in the History of “Victoria” there will be!
In the process of clarifying some information about the history of the ship, it became clear.
That the longevity of the Victoria is still an exceptional case even by the standards of the English fleet.
That the history of the ship is not very simple and not as straightforward as they tell tourists.
That she is even more interesting than she previously thought.
And that finding it on the Internet, without inventions and inventions, is very difficult.
Therefore, here is a brief history of “Victoria” as presented by me.
Sources will be mentioned separately.
Part one. Design and construction
The ship's history began in February 1756, when surveyor engineer Thomas Slade,
was appointed Chief Builder of a new first-class battleship.
According to the terms of reference of the Admiralty, the Royal George was to serve as a prototype -
the only one-hundred-gun battleship in the British fleet at that time.
Slade was supposed to start building the ship by logging, which took several years
had to dry and ripen for work. But the Admiralty was in a hurry - the Seven Years' War began,
ships were needed. Then the builder found a warehouse of ten-year-old ship's wood
and there was no need to make compromises. There are opinions that due to the construction of the ship from a very old
and seasoned material he lived for such a long time.
In 1757, the Admiralty was again headed by Lord George Anson - a very energetic but efficient leader
and the storming at the shipyards stopped. Also, while Slade was looking for wood and producing blueprints,
England severely crushed France at sea. Apparently this is why Victoria was built slowly
and this is the second reason for her longevity.
July 23, 1759, on one of the slipways of Chatham - the main naval arsenal and shipyard of England -
The groundbreaking ceremony took place. Since the year was very fruitful for victories, the ship was given the name “Victory”,
despite the fact that it was already the fifth “Victory” of the British Navy, and despite the fact that
that the fourth "Victory" - a 110-gun ship of the first rank built in 1737, was lost during a storm
in 1744, as usual with the entire crew.
During those harsh war years, the shipyards of England were mainly engaged in the repair of ships,
damaged in battles and campaigns, and construction proceeded slowly. Therefore, in the spring of 1763,
when the Seven Years' War ended with the victory of England, "Victory" was
keel with frame ribs barely connected to each other.
But after the war, work began to boil - already on May 7, 1765, the ship was launched,
and although its completion took another 13 years, in 1778 the battleship Victory was added to the fleet lists.
The ship cost £63,176 to build - practically nothing
the country received another wonderful instrument of its history and glory.
Now Victory is painted according to the canons of the 18th century: black top, yellow middle like a beeline >
the figurehead after perestroika in 1799 became a heraldic wick >
Now all the rigging is made from Italian hemp, but once it was from Russian >
balconies and stern decor are also after the reconstruction of 1799
unoriginal
practically fake >
Well, modern designers chose the font too, hello
in Nelson's time they used normal English typefaces
Caslon or Baskerville
so that the British would then sign their ship with a capital square
it's not even funny you know >
Description of the Victory ship set
Housing with double skinned made of linden and excellent walnut, the deck is covered with tanganika slats. Coincidentally or not, the walnut slats for finishing trim are available in both light and dark. This allows you to create the light stripes that were painted with yellow ocher on the prototype without resorting to painting. To aid in assembly, all wood pieces are already cut. As expected, the velvets are made with thicker slats. The rudder blade, which is very rare in models, is composite, consisting of five separate vertical elements. This is truly amazing!The cannons on the upper deck are mounted on walnut frames and have trousers and waists. Lanterns, rails, fences and other parts made of brass, cast or walnut. About a hundred beautiful metal cannons and carronades"Bronze" polished to give them a natural appearance. The gun ports open and close on their hinges. The set includes calves on salings, all tops platforms are sheathed.
In general, the spar of the model is made in quite detail, like all Corel models. Stand provided, rigging threads of five diameters, flags. The 14-sheet drawings and instructions include both full-size and scale diagrams. Since 2011, due to changes in technology, the printing on flags has been blurred.
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Battleship "Victory"
"Victory" (translated as "Victory"), Lord Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar, became the fifth ship of the English fleet to bear this name. Its predecessor, a 100-gun battleship, was wrecked and lost with its entire crew in October 1744.
A new 100-gun ship of the line was ordered at the end of 1758, during the Seven Years' War. Its construction began the following summer in Chatham; the talented shipbuilder Thomas Slade developed the design and supervised the work. Perhaps, with a different development of events, the ship would have been built much faster, but the victories of the British fleet made haste unnecessary. By the way, the ship owes its name to the victories won in 1759, because the unfortunate fate of the previous battleship of the same name weighed on the people who chose the name for the new combat unit for some time.
The main material for the construction of Victory was beautiful, well-seasoned oak (a total of about 10,000 m3 of wood was required) - the procurement of materials began long before the start of work. The keel was made of elm; pine and other conifers were also used during construction. It is to high-quality wood that the ship owes its long and glorious career. It was launched in May 1765, but the Royal Navy did not feel the need for a three-deck giant at that time. As a result, until 1778, the Victory stood in the Medway River without weapons or crew.
Everything changed after the rebellious North American colonies were supported by France, which had a strong battle fleet. Now ships of the first rank were in demand, and by order of the commander of the Western Squadron (it was unofficially called the Canal Fleet from the English Channel) Admiral Augustus Keppel, the Victory was equipped with a crew (John Campbell became the first commander) and armed. The ship had the following characteristics: displacement - 3556 tons, maximum length - 69.3 m, on the main deck - 56.7 m, width - 15.8 m, draft - 8.8 m, distance from the waterline to the top of the mainmast - 62.5 m, sail area - 5440 m3, speed in normal wind - 9 knots, crew size - 850 people. The design armament consisted of 30 42-pounder guns on the gondeck, 28 24-pounder guns on the middeck, 30 12-pounder guns on the front deck, and 12 6-pounder guns on the quarterdeck and forecastle. But in preparation for the ship's commissioning, instead of 42 pound guns, 32 pound guns were installed on it. 42 pound guns were replaced by 32 pound guns.
"Victory"
Already on July 23, 1778, the Victory, on which Keppel held his flag, took part in the Battle of Ouessant. At one point in the battle, the flagship ships “Victory” and the 110-gun “Brittany”, on which was the French admiral Louis Gillouet, Count d'Orvilliers, came into contact with each other. The duel lasted only a few minutes, but each of the giants managed to inflict quite serious damage on the enemy. On the Vitori, which lost a total of 35 people killed and wounded during the battle, the mast was damaged (especially the foremast, which threatened to collapse at any moment), but the Brittany received many hits in the hull, and some of its guns were knocked out. The 90-gun ship Ville de Paris, which was following the Brittany, also suffered from the fire of the Victory cannons.
At the beginning of 1780, the Victory underwent repairs; to protect it from woodworms, its underwater part was sheathed with copper (3,923 sheets were required), and the armament underwent changes. So, 42 pounds returned to the lower deck, and carronades appeared for the first time in the bow of the upper deck - relatively small, 24 pounds. In this form, the battleship, commanded by Captain Henry Cromwell, under the flag of Rear Admiral Richard Kempefelt, took part in the attack on a French convoy in December 1781 (the Second Battle of Ouessant), when the British captured a dozen and a half merchant ships.
The end of the war led to the fact that in March 1783 the Victory in Portsmouth was put into reserve. In 1787-1788 she was thoroughly repaired and then returned to reserve. But the fleet soon began to increase its numbers as relations with France, where the revolution took place, quickly deteriorated. The ship of the first rank was first needed by the Canal Fleet, and then was sent to the Mediterranean Sea, where it found itself in the thick of things. Under the flag of Admiral Samuel Hood, he took part in the actions at Toulon and the Corsican campaign, during which the British took Bastia and Calvi. But the ship especially distinguished itself in January 1797 in the battle of Cape St. Vincent, where it was the flagship of Admiral John Jervis. Despite the Spanish numerical superiority, the British commander resolutely attacked the enemy and defeated him, earning the title of Earl of St. Vincent. Then “Victory” had a chance to meet in battle with the Spanish giant “Santissima Trinidad”.
However, this is where Victory’s glorious biography almost ended. In October 1797, the ship, which was not in the best condition, was laid up in Chatham and then turned into a floating hospital. And then fickle Fortune intervened: in October 1799, the battleship Impregnable was wrecked. They decided to find a replacement among the old ships, and the choice fell on Victory. They decided to return the “Veteran” to service, and in February 1800, extensive work began on it. The battleship was overhauled, re-equipped, and from mid-April 1803 it was again considered a first-rank ship. And on May 16, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson raised the flag for the first time on Victory.
Until the fall of 1805, Victory successfully served, and was even able to distinguish herself during the capture of the French 32-gun frigate Embuscade. But the ship really gained fame off the coast of Spain. In September, Victory, flying Nelson's flag, arrived at Cadiz, where the British were blockading Admiral Villeneuve's Franco-Spanish squadron. The battleship carried the following weapons: on the gondeck there were 30 long-barreled 32-pounder guns, on the middeck - 28 also long-barreled 24-pounder guns, on the front deck - 30 12-pounder guns, on the quarterdeck - 12 of the same guns, on the forecastle - two 12-pounder guns and two formidable 68-pounder guns carronades. The ship was commanded by Nelson's friend, one of the members of the famous "brotherhood" Captain Thomas Hardy.
In the great battle that took place near Cape Trafalgar on October 21, Victory led the bottom of two wake columns that cut through the Franco-Spanish formation. To encourage his men, Nelson ordered the famous signal to be raised: “England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty.” Usually at that time the flagships were in the middle of the battle line, but at Trafalgar Nelson found it necessary to put forward the ships of the first rank (the second column was led by the 100-gun Royal Sovereign under the flag of the junior flagship Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood), which had the most durable hulls.
The British commander's plan was completely justified. Having withstood energetic, but not very accurate enemy fire while approaching (the most serious damage to the tiller during this period of the battle was the damage to the tiller; the steering wheel had to be steered from the lower deck), the Victory, while passing astern of the French flagship Busantor, received a crushing longitudinal salvo. Villeneuve's ship immediately found itself with many killed and wounded, and up to 20 guns were out of action. According to Hardy, the most successful shot was made by a carronade loaded with grapeshot on the port side. The starboard guns were not left idle either, successfully firing at the Redoutable. This ship soon turned out to be very badly damaged and disabled, but before that, it was from its Mars that a French non-commissioned officer at 13:25 mortally wounded Nelson with an accurate shot. He was carried down, but this could no longer prevent the British from achieving an outstanding victory. The admiral died at 16:30, having still had time to learn about the brilliant victory and complete defeat of the enemy.
The casualties on the Victory were 57 killed and 102 wounded; the ship was seriously damaged, having lost its mast. He was brought to Gibraltar in tow. But this was no longer important: supremacy of the seas remained with Britain until the end of the war.
The ship's active service continued until the fall of 1812, after which it was turned into a blockade. Victory served as an auxiliary unit until 1922, when work on its restoration began using funds from a special fund. The restoration was completed in 1928, and since then Victory has been in dry dock in Portsmouth, being one of the main attractions of the city. By the way, contrary to popular belief, the ship is not just a museum; it is still part of the Royal Navy.
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Victoria is a legendary ship of the British Navy. It was launched in 1765. This is a ship of the line that took part in the Battle of Trafalgar; Admiral Nelson was wounded on board. The most interesting thing is that this ship, which did not take part in battles after 1812, has survived to this day. She has lain in Portsmouth's oldest dock since 1922, is an excellent example of the navy of the day, has now been converted into a museum and is the oldest complete ship from the bygone era of England's dominion of the sea.
"Victoria" - the flagship of the English fleet
"Victoria" is a first class ship; ships of this class carried a minimum of three masts. Ancient ships carried weapons only on their sides, so the most effective battle tactic was to line up several ships in a line and fire a salvo. The cannons of a large sixty-meter ship, when fired simultaneously from one side, fired almost half a ton of cannonballs! Such large ships were called battleships.
History of "Victoria"
The ship "Victoria" was laid down on July 23, 1759 in Chatham according to the design of Thomas Slade. According to the report, it was a sunny and bright day. Initially, 250 people were hired for construction, but the seven-year war confused the plans, and the ship was launched only in 1765. The dimensions of the Victoria were close to the maximum possible for a wooden ship, without the use of metal in the main structures. The length of Victoria is 227 feet or 69 meters, the width is 51 feet and 10 inches - almost 16 meters. The casing was reinforced with a layer of copper. A steering wheel was used on the ship; this was an innovation; previously, ships had a mechanical lifting pedestal system to control the massive steering wheel. Sailing weapons have also become much more efficient. On sharp courses we used slanting staysails and mizzens, on full courses we used foxes.
Construction of "Victoria"
A special commission of the Admiralty accepted the ship in 1776. On Friday, May 8, 1778, Victoria hoisted her sails for the first time, fired a salute of her guns, and put to sea under the command of Sir John Lindsay.
Design features of the ship
The ship has four decks that stretch the entire length of the hull. Supplies, provisions, gunpowder and water were stored on the lowest deck. The cabins of medical personnel and midshipmen were located immediately behind the cockpit, also on the lower deck. Kubrick became the headquarters during hostilities. The lower, middle and upper decks each accommodated 30 guns of various calibers. Victoria's broadside could send almost half a ton of cannonballs over a distance of more than a mile. The middle artillery deck housed the infirmary and galley. Crew members spent the night in hanging bunks on the middle and lower gun decks. The admiral's cabin was located aft, on the upper gun deck. The upper open gun deck mainly contained rigging and winches with which to control the ship.
Interior of the ship
"Victoria" inside - model
Gun deck
The office of the famous Admiral Nelson, who led the British fleet to victory on the Victoria, was small in size, and his personal cabin was generally modest; the admiral slept on a hanging bunk. Nelson received guests and officers in the dining room. This was in stark contrast to the opulent decoration of the galleons of the previous century. Although the Victoria looks like a huge three-story palace from the outside, it does not have as many decorations and carvings as earlier ships. Everything is given to military expediency.
At Portsmouth dock
The ship is like a floating fortress designed to ensure England's supremacy at sea. This is the "wooden gate of England" which cannot be crossed.
Battle of Trafalgar
In 1778, France recognized American independence and vowed to defend with arms its trade relations with the young state. England began to prepare for war.
"Victoria" is preparing for battle
When Napoleon came to power, relations not only worsened, but war broke out. Great Britain participated in it in alliance with Austria, Russia, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Naples. Napoleon's army was the strongest on land, it blocked communications with Great Britain, but in turn, England put a naval blockade on Napoleon, preventing the supply of troops and Napoleon's communication with the colonies. Bonaparte decided to gather all naval forces, clear the English Channel of English ships and land troops in England. For these purposes, Napoleon assembled a large combined fleet of France and Spain. However, in France by this time there was a shortage of competent and skillful naval officers; they were destroyed by the revolution. The British sailors were experienced warriors, they took part in many battles. The collision of these fleets led to the largest and most widespread naval battle of the 19th century - the Battle of Trafalgar. The battle began on October 21, 1805 on the Atlantic coast of Spain near the city of Cadiz. The outcome of this battle was supposed to show who now owned the sea and, ultimately, the whole world. Against 33 British ships under the leadership of Admiral Nelson on the flagship Victoria were 40 ships of the combined fleet under the command of Pierre-Charles Villeneuve.
"Victoria" at the Battle of Trafalgar
At the beginning of the Battle of Trafalgar, the Victoria had 104 guns, including two 64-pounder carronades and 30 32-pounder guns. In preparation for the battle, Nelson took into account all factors: swell, wind, waves. He formed the ships in two columns and stood at the head of the left. He put on his dress uniform and went out onto the upper deck so he could be seen. To all persuasion to go down, he answered - the sailors must see their commander. At eleven o'clock the first shots of the flaring battle were fired.
Start of the battle
Two columns plunged into the center of the formations of the combined French-Spanish fleet. This fleet stood in a crescent formation; it did not have time to form into columns; the wind was in the way. The historic battle has begun. The lead ships of the British broke through the formation, firing from all their guns. Victoria entered between the enemy's two largest ships: the Spanish lumbering giant Santisima Trinidad, which was equipped with 144 guns, and the French flagship Bucentaure.
"Victoria" is engaged in a boarding battle with a French ship
The formation of ships was mixed, each ship looked for an enemy and fought with him. Nelson was seen by a gunner on the French ship Redontable, with which the Victoria engaged in a boarding battle, and inflicted a mortal wound on him. Horatio Nelson was taken to the Victoria infirmary; from the infirmary Nelson kept asking about the progress of the battle. “This day is yours,” they answered him, although by that time it was not clear whether the British had won or not.
Nelson was in the thick of the battle
Nelson passed away. The British continued the battle; they were far superior in training to the French and Spaniards; the British responded to each salvo of the French-Spanish fleet with three salvos. The English artillerymen were also distinguished by their accuracy - by firing at the cannon ports, they disabled the enemy’s artillery. Three hours after the start of the battle, most of the ships of the combined squadron were defeated or captured. At two o'clock in the afternoon the Bucentaure surrendered with the leader of the French-Spanish fleet, Villeneuve. The ships of the combined fleet began to leave the battle. The outcome of the battle became clear. The Allies lost 17 ships (Santisima Trinidad sank during transportation during a storm) and more than seven thousand people. The British lost 2 thousand sailors, but saved all the ships, although some were so battered and broken that they had to be towed. The Victoria with Nelson's body was towed to Gibraltar for repairs.
Further fate of the vessel
After repairs, the ship patrolled the Baltic and Spanish coasts until 1812. Then returned to Portsmouth. In 1889, Victoria became the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief and remains so to this day. In 1922, they decided to give the ship the look that the battleship had during the Battle of Trafalgar. Currently, the ship has been turned into a museum.
Gun deck
Aft
Ever since man learned to travel by sea, maritime states began to seek wealth and power beyond their territories. By the 18th century, Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and Britain had established vast colonial empires.
Ships built from wood and linen began to make trade voyages along the sea routes between the colonies and home. During the era of the sailing fleet, imperial ambitions were realized in dramatic battles at sea. Warships, equipped with several decks on which deadly guns were installed, became the most powerful weapons of their time. Three-decker warships were used - battleships, which carried up to 74 guns on board, approached the enemy as close as possible and fired a salvo. The wooden ship, breaking into splinters, undermined the morale of its crew, thus dealing the main blow to the enemy. These were the tactics of naval battles of that era.
Whoever dominated the oceans ruled the world. For almost two centuries, Britain was such a country. The first truly military fleet consisted of full-fledged battleships becoming the result of the activities of the ambitious King Henry VIII. At that time, naval battles were fought exclusively between merchant ships on which guns were installed. His warships were built exclusively for military purposes. This was a real revolution at the time. The prototype of the battleship was " Mary Rose».
Over the next two hundred years, in constant conflicts between warring empires, the ships that took part in naval battles turned into real battleships, striking in their splendor. Large sailing ship" Victory"with three gun decks was a classic battleship. He could be on the open sea at any time of the year and in any corner of the globe.
« Victory"was launched in 1765. Its construction took six years and an entire oak forest consisting of 2,500 trees. Battleship was twice as long" Mary Rose"and was seven times superior in displacement. Sailing warship" Victory"represented a whole dynasty of sailing ships, which, as they improved, became weapons in themselves.
Sailing ship« Victory"is a floating gun platform. Fifty guns of different calibers, designed to deliver a crushing blow that will destroy a house in a matter of seconds. The power of the fire was incredible for that time. One broadside is 500 kg of metal. The team was very large from 850 to 950 people. It was incredibly difficult to operate in such conditions: the rooms were low, there were few ventilation holes through which smoke could escape. There is no way to hide from the enemy's return fire on the gun deck.
classic sailing battleship "Victory"
construction
illustrations depicting the classic battleship "Victory"
battleship "Victory"
battleship "Victory" in the roadstead
battleship "Victory" at sea
Battleship« Victory"in the events of the British Empire became a front-line position in the greatest naval battle in the history of the sailing fleet. In 1803, the battleship " Victory" when Horatio Nelson came aboard, she became the flagship. At that time, the British feared an invasion of their country across the English Channel. On October 9, 1805, Nelson invited his officers on board for dinner. battleship« Victory" He told them how to end once and for all the looming threat posed by the combined fleet of France and Spain. A determined and experienced sailor challenged the standard method of approaching the enemy in one line and fighting at close range. Instead, Nelson proposed forming in two columns and breaking through the enemy line, which would result in confusion. The tactic was risky. During the Battle of Trafalgar, both squadrons met at dawn on October 21, 1805. Battleships And frigates approached at a speed of two knots so that the sailors could have breakfast in peace and think about what was about to happen. IN Battle of Trafalgar Nelson's ships were superior to their opponents only in size and armament.
Battle of Trafalgar
During times sailing fleet naval warfare was more an art than a science. The battle was won by naval commanders like Nelson, not by ships. This tactic was also used due to the fact that the French and Spanish could not shoot in a straight line. Horatio Nelson's fleet of twenty-seven ships defeated the French-Spanish fleet of thirty-three in a few hours. battleships And frigates.
