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- Dec 14, 2021
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I thought I'd flag something here for anyone planning to visit HMS Victory in Portsmouth, especially if you're coming from afar. As I'm only 50 miles away and the weather was fine, I popped down yesterday to do another photo session, having started working on this model again. I have to say I was a little taken aback to find that most of the ship is now covered by a tarped scaffold as the renovators have removed all the planking from the sides. Coupled with the removal of the masts and yards two or three years back, a visit to the Victory for the next 15 - 20 years (possibly optimistic timeframe) will be all about the interior as there's not much of the exterior still on view.
Of course this is totally necessary. The rot and general state of disrepair around the stern, cutwater and keel was even more evident yesterday, and it's a no-brainer that without some very serious restoration, and soon, the ship will just collapse in on itself and be no more. To be prosaic, I have a garden shed in similar condition and later this year it'll become firewood. Also, the flip side is that you get insight (literally) into the frame and to be completely fair to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the condition and presentation of the ship is plain to see via the HMS Victory landing page on their website. Whether it's still reasonable to charge the eye-watering £50 entrance fee while this is happening is for each person to weigh up.
As an aside, because flash is not allowed and nor can you take or use a tripod within the historic dockyard, interior photography of the Victory is quite challenging. It is sometimes so dark that it's hard to even know if you've got focus. I went yesterday because I correctly guessed that it would be very quiet, so I could more easily sit the camera on gun carriages, ropes, whatever, and do long exposures or stacking without having people walking through the pictures!
Of course this is totally necessary. The rot and general state of disrepair around the stern, cutwater and keel was even more evident yesterday, and it's a no-brainer that without some very serious restoration, and soon, the ship will just collapse in on itself and be no more. To be prosaic, I have a garden shed in similar condition and later this year it'll become firewood. Also, the flip side is that you get insight (literally) into the frame and to be completely fair to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the condition and presentation of the ship is plain to see via the HMS Victory landing page on their website. Whether it's still reasonable to charge the eye-watering £50 entrance fee while this is happening is for each person to weigh up.
As an aside, because flash is not allowed and nor can you take or use a tripod within the historic dockyard, interior photography of the Victory is quite challenging. It is sometimes so dark that it's hard to even know if you've got focus. I went yesterday because I correctly guessed that it would be very quiet, so I could more easily sit the camera on gun carriages, ropes, whatever, and do long exposures or stacking without having people walking through the pictures!
