OT Man o War British Warship Found in English Channel -

I read this earlier. I wish they'd given a bit more background about the ship. When many people (including myself) read this the first thought will be "That can't be right HMS Victory is in Portsmouth".

This clearly isn't THE HMS Victory but a previous namesake - it would be nice if the news report gave just a little info about it.

Cheers,

Nigel

Nigel Heather wrote

The Portsmouth Victory was the seventh HMS Victory, launched 1765 and commissioned in 1788. Because the Navy seem quite attached to the name but can't have two ships with the same name* at the same time the previous Victory probably sank in 1765.

• Apart from the unfortunate problem with HMS Unicorn in the early years of WW2, of course.

the article did farther down. oh, wait, it was another url from another group. it said it was the namesake for melson's ship. lots of wrong information about that wreck. people swear they heard it break up on the rocks but it's 75 miles away from there. look in rec.collecting coins for more.

This HMS Victory was better known as "Balchim's Victory" as he was the admiral in charge of the squadron when it sank in 1744. It was supposedly a spectacular vessel with four open galleries at the stern (HMS Victory of 1765 has three and they're all closed) so quite a handsome ship.

Cookie Sewell

"Rik Shepherd" wrote in news:4986381c$ snipped-for-privacy@news.bnb-lp.com:

Well?

Gray Ghost wrote

In the early 19th century (and before, I guess) the Royal Navy built the hulls of more ships than they actually needed, then stored them without masts, rigging or armaments; if a war started, or someone accidentally wrecked a warship, the stored ships could be unstored and commissioned in a couple of weeks.

HMS Unicorn was launched in 1824 but never commissioned for active service and was still there as a hulk when ironclads made her obsolete. She was lent to the Woolwich Arsenal as a floating gunpowder store for a while and later was towed up to Dundee as a training ship for the Royal Naval Reserve. And she stayed in Dundee throughout the 20th century. during both world wars she was the Area Headquarters for the Senior Naval Officer, Dundee.

Meanwhile, the First Lord of the Admiralty was asked to name a new aircraft carrier, and he picked Unicorn. When they realised the there already was an HMS Unicorn, they had the brilliant plan of renaming the wooden frigate. Which would have been fine if they hadn't renamed it to HMS Unicorn II, which wasn't too clever in a service which worked on the principle of only ever having one ship of any given name. The result was apparently a succession of Swordfish crew turning up at Dundee and wondering where their planes were and how they'd fly off a ship that was 140 foot from stern to figurehead. To add to their confusion HMS Unicorn II did have a modern superstructure balanced on it's wooden decks, and had radar fitted at some point. In 1941 the Admiralty decided they'd exhausted the comedy potential and renamed HMS Unicorn II to HMS Cressy.

In 1959 the aircraft carrier was scrapped, and HMS Cressy became HMS Unicorn again. It's still in Dundee, well worth visiting if you're in the area.

There's another one name one ship policy, relating to an earlier HMS Unicorn. HMS Thalia was captured by the French, so the Navy assigned the name to the next keel to be laid, as it's really important to have a warship named after the Muse of Comedy somewhere in the Navy. Before it was finished, the original HMS Thalia was recaptured and returned to the Navy's rosters. The half built new ship was immediately renamed HMS Unicorn. In the 'numbers of ships of this name' list, this temporary, not finished or launched Thalia counts as a valid ship.

"Rik Shepherd" wrote in news:4988b5b2$ snipped-for-privacy@news.bnb-lp.com:

I love this stuff.

Thanx, Frank

Me too!

HMS Victory (1765) was originally built with open stern galerries an walks for the admiral and the captain. The stern and the stem were rebuilt to their present day appearance in the 1805 refit after Trafalgar.

Cheers from Peter

Right you are, but still only had three -- the British did tend to rebuild ships to change with the times.

But even with finding the remains doubt we will ever know why this one went down.

Cookie Sewell

I think a show on Discovery Channel last night was all about this ship

- they had to confirm the identity of the ship before they could dig, Seems the British military has the final say about when they can work on such shipwrecks...

Craig

the rn should be flayed publically for allowing salvage on the aboukir, cressy and hogue. the idea that those three war graves were blown open to salvage metals is disgusting.