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HMS Victory - The Big Repair

Kevin the Lubber

Kevin the Lubber

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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!



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So basically when you visit the ship after the restoration is completed, you won’t be visiting the original HMS Vicorty, but instead you’ll be visiting just a replica of the original ship.
 
Well….. even by Trafalgar you wouldn’t have been on the original Victory, and certainly not afterwards, given the pounding she took. But I’m splitting hairs. I imagine a lot of what’s there will still be original, especially the interior, but probably very little of the outer skin. From my perspective that’s still better than the alternative.

I must find the time to sift through my photos and post a few. One little gem coming out of all this work is that they had stripped out the removable covers around the windows in Hardy’s cabin, to air the timber, and you can now see that almost every window could be re-purposed as a stern gunport. It struck me more than ever on this trip that, beautiful as it is/was, the ship was just one enormous fighting machine, it had no other purpose at all.
 
BarrySR said:
So basically when you visit the ship after the restoration is completed, you won’t be visiting the original HMS Victory, but instead you’ll be visiting just a replica of the original ship.
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Whilst I take your point I think that it's fair comment to say that it does depend on your definition of the word "replica"!
Given that the old girl would've been repaired at various times during her sailing life (post Trafalgar if nothing else) unless they took her back to her original "as built" configuration plus the quite awful results if she isn't repaired - "without some very serious restoration, and soon, the ship will just collapse in on itself and be no more" I know what I'd prefer even if it's a case of possessing "great Grandfather's axe". "It's only had three new heads and five new handles"!
 
Your post reminds me that I only have another two weeks in which to make use of last years ticket, under which you can return as many times as you like within a year. With a good forecast for next week I think I’ll try to get down there and have a better look at the Warrior.
 
I made another brief visit the other day as I had business down that way. I didn't have time to go through the Victory, just grabbed a few quick photos of details that are of particular interest to me at the moment.

I have to say, the Big Repair is very, very timely. This photo doesn't quite capture the true condition but the stern is looking very down at heel these days.

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Thanks for posting the pics. The cost to keep her afloat must be horrendous and no doubt considered a waste by some taxpayers. I am happy that she is still with us and there are those that care enough to keep her pristine as possible.

Question time. Are here any original pieces of Victory from the time of her rebuild in 1803? If so, are there any of these relic pieces that are for sale via the museum or other legit sources? I have used pieces of an original keel of a St. Michels skipjack on a model for a client and that meant the world to him and me both. While our world of ship modeling will probably never have enough Victory models, (I added two more to the fray many years ago :) ) a piece of her would still be a great story to include in any model, especially if it is one that participated in Trafalgar or on which Admirals Nelson, Sutton or Hardy served or commanded.
Allan
 
Allan, I can sell you an unlimited supply of 100% genuine victory timber for about $5 a foot, honest guv. I also have bits of Nelson’s braid, several of his hats and even the ships cat though it changed colour after it died. Just give me 5 minutes to nip out to the workshop…..

Seriously, I see slivers of supposedly genuine timbers being sold on eBay at unbelievable prices but, call me a cynic, unless Horatio himself was signing the certificate I have a feeling they come from the same place as moon rocks and angel feathers. It’s a dead cert that there will be scrap wood coming off the ship but I’d expect this is treated much like gold dust in a jewellers. If you see it being credibly certificated by the museum you’ll probably be able to trust that, but I imagine you’ll need very deep pockets.

I’m not at all an expert on Victory’s history but I thought very little of the outer skin dates back to trafalgar. Hopefully the real experts will chip in here.
 
BarrySR said:
So basically when you visit the ship after the restoration is completed, you won’t be visiting the original HMS Vicorty, but instead you’ll be visiting just a replica of the original ship
Click to expand...
AllanKP69 said:
Thanks for posting the pics. The cost to keep her afloat must be horrendous and no doubt considered a waste by some taxpayers. I am happy that she is still with us and there are those that care enough to keep her pristine as possible.

Question time. Are here any original pieces of Victory from the time of her rebuild in 1803? If so, are there any of these relic pieces that are for sale via the museum or other legit sources? I have used pieces of an original keel of a St. Michels skipjack on a model for a client and that meant the world to him and me both. While our world of ship modeling will probably never have enough Victory models, (I added two more to the fray many years ago :) ) a piece of her would still be a great story to include in any model, especially if it is one that participated in Trafalgar or on which Admirals Nelson, Sutton or Hardy served or commanded.
Allan
Click to expand...
To me, even a major refit like this is a sort of snake skin off. The beast uder the hood remains pretty much the same. Theseus' paradox is a thread of mine that I messed up. Sorry for that.
BarrySR said:
Theseus' ship paradox...
Click to expand...
 
Albert Mary said:
Theseus' paradox
Click to expand...
It’s an apt analogy. But, given the vast amount of timber and metalwork employed in the original build, it’s almost inconceivable that there is nothing at all left of the original ship. I would think that most of the inboard timbers are ‘real’. Then again, appearances can be deceptive. I was admiring the enormous 68lb breech-loading guns on HMS Warrior, also in the historic dockyard, rapped on one with my knuckles as it didn’t feel quite cold enough for metal and realised they’re fibreglass replicas! When I then looked at the massive anchor, all of a sudden it looked a bit too smooth and unpitted….
 
It is important for all those with an interest in the Victory to remember that she was already old by the battle of Trafalgar. She was launched (correct me if I'm wrong) around 1767, so she is over 250 years old. How many pieces of timber does anyone know which would endure being outside in all weathers for that length of time?

Victory was in active service for many years after Trafalgar, and would have been continuously maintained throughout that time. She was also heavily restored in the early 20th century, when she was taken back as much as possible to her Trafalgar condition, and set in dry dock as a permanent museum.

Many of her timbers are 'new', being earlier replacements of the original, but much of her original structure still exists. The important thing is that the repairs, as much as possible, maintained her earlier appearance. She is still, to all appearances, the ship which carried Nelson across the Atlantic and back, and then fought in a battle. Yes, quite a lot of what you see now was not at Trafalgar, but to be honest, there is no definitive version of how she looked then, and what she is now is as close as anyone will ever come to a ship of that time, without time-travel. We should be grateful that so many people have been willing to give time and money to maintaining her as a memorial and visitor attraction.

Without their efforts, the world of ships would be a poorer place.

Ratty
 
There is a bit of difference between Victory and replicas. Many replicas are modified to satisfy public access and safety. For example headroom between decks is often increased. Another case is Pride of Baltimore. The original Pride’s hull lines were representative of a true Baltimore Clipper Schooner. Following her sinking with tragic loss of life, a new Pride was commissioned. To improve her stability characteristics a hull with a different underwater shape was designed. Sailing she looks lie a real Baltimore Clipper but out of the water these differences are noticeable.

Then there’s USS Constitution. Like Victory very little of her original wooden structure remains, but unlike Victory the US Navy has not bothered to follow US Government Historic Preservation Standards to restore her to her Period of Historic Significance. She’s largely a PR asset.

The British Government is working to restore and maintain Victory as she appeared at Trafalgar. Removing and replacing rotten wood is necessary to do this. Whether any original material remains is less important than maintaining her historic appearance.

Roger
 
Looking at photos of the framing exposed, those are large holes for the fasteners for the timbers, but it may be an illusion without a size reference of the width of actual frames.
 
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