Victory (ship, 1737)
![Loss of the Victory, painting by Peter Monamy, 18th century [2]](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:HMS_Victory_sinking.jpg)
Loss of the Victory , painting by Peter Monamy, 18th century
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The Victory was a 1st rank ship of the line with 100 cannons and sailed under the British flag . She was the fifth ship in the Royal Navy with that name and one of the largest and most modern warships of her time. She sank in a storm in the English Channel in 1744 , killing her crew, including Admiral John Balchen .
Construction / construction
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The Victory was built according to the guidelines of the 1719 establishment and its basic dimensions (length / width / draft) corresponded to the Royal Sovereign .
The ship was a square sail with three masts ( mizzen mast , main mast and foremast ). Only on the mizzen mast was there a latin sail in the lowest position (undersan sail) .
The Victory had three decks and ended in the stern area with a smooth transom . Galleries were integrated into the transom, which led into the side galleries and, as a shipbuilding novelty in the Royal Navy , were designed to be open for the first time. As a special feature, the Victory also had a gallery construction on the upper poop deck (Poop-Royal), so that it had four rows of windows, four rows of lights and three open galleries at the stern, which were decorated with numerous baroque carvings.
Contemporaries said it had a military deterrent function that should not be underestimated due to its powerful appearance .
At the top position of the stern there were traditionally three stern lights.
It is very likely that the predecessor Victory , which was destroyed by fire in 1721 and was originally called Royal James and was renamed Victory in 1691 , also used some wood in this new Victory , especially since it was officially rebuilt as a replica ") of the ship that was burned during caulking and then dismantled.
The new Victory was equipped with 100 cannons and was therefore a ship of the line of the 1st rank . In addition, she was the last ship of the Royal Navy 1st rank to be fully equipped with bronze cannons . She was also the only ship in the Royal Navy that had the unusual number of 15 gun ports on each side on the upper battery deck .
With regard to their sailing performance of bowed triplane Victory apparently to in certain wind conditions, according to Lee to be pressed. This could have been due to the relatively high structure in relation to the narrow width. Added to this was the already described stern heaviness due to the carvings on the transom. In addition, the Victory's center of gravity seems to have been quite high, which caused the ship to roll sharply .
Overall, this apparently had a negative effect on her sailing characteristics and made it difficult for her crew to keep her under control under certain conditions.
There is also evidence of a conspicuously large number of necessary repairs during their working hours which, due to a lack of (oak) wood, could not be carried out at all, late or incorrectly and thus only improvised. This must have had a detrimental effect on the stability and thus apparently permanently damaged the ship's structure, because during the construction and service life of the ship there was apparently a higher demand for wood in the Kingdom of Great Britain than could be covered by reforestation . At the end of the Seven Years' War , the usable wood stock had been reduced by 9/10. A few harsh winters also forced this situation. As a result of this bottleneck, woods were used that had not been adequately deposited or that had already partially rotted when they were deposited . If you install this wood in ships and then permanently expose it to water, this material tends to rot quickly. Rotten wood, on the other hand, is extremely unstable and takes on a sponge-like consistency over time. Ventilation of wood for the surface hull also plays a role in order to increase durability. British ships at the time of the Victory were not even ventilated in port, which encouraged a rotting process.
These overall circumstances, taken together or individually, could have had a significant impact on the loss of the ship in the stormy night of October 4th to October 5th, 1744.
history
The keel laying of the Victory took place on March 6, 1726 in Portsmouth . The ship was built by master shipbuilder Joseph Allin and was initially expected to cost £ 38,239 - plus an additional £ 12,652 for further adjustments as a flagship .
After 11 years of construction in dry dock she ran on 23 February 1737 the Royal Dockyards of Portsmouth on stack and was in 1739 the Channel Fleet under Admiral Sir John Norris assumed. Thomas Whitney became the captain of the ship.
Admiral Norris followed provocations of the Spanish fleet and Spanish privateers on July 16, 1739 and ran out with 16 ships in order to finally fight the Spaniards and prevent further influence on British ship movements. Even if there were no major battles, Norris apparently managed a successful intervention.
On July 16, 1740, the Victory collided with the Lion and lost the bowsprit .
In March 1744, King George II approved Norris' retirement after 54 years of service.
In July 1744, Admiral Sir John Balchen , who was then the second in command of the Royal Navy, took over the Victory as the flagship; Samuel Faulkner , who replaced the late Whitney, had been the captain since December 1741 .
The Victory took at that time the flagship Balchens any significant naval battle of their time in part but was primarily used to protect the important trade routes and thus for maintaining or increasing the extraordinary trading position of the British, by giving merchant ships escorted or hijacked convoy came to help.
Last mission and downfall
The Victory was ordered in 1744 in a strong squadron of 8 Dutch and 25 British ships as the flagship of Admiral Balchen to the Tagus river delta after the French Brest fleet had locked a large convoy of British merchant ships there.
Balchen managed to put the French to flight so that he could accompany the convoy to Gibraltar . He then tried to fix parts of the French fleet and to involve them in combat. On August 9, 1744, Balchen was able to take eleven large merchant ships from San Domingo as prizes . On September 9, 1744, while he was besieging the port of Cádiz , the commander of his Dutch ships under his command, Admiral Hendrik Gravé , reported that his ships were running out of water and food and that they had to be replenished. Balchen then ordered the return trip to England to take provisions, carry out repairs and prepare for further measures.
On the way back to England Balchen was able to anchor his fleet in Lisbon . The Victory took on £ 400,000 there, intended for Dutch traders.
On the onward journey back home, Balchen is said to have taken a few more prizes in order, as was customary for commanders of the Royal Navy, to add his share of the prize to his private assets at the end of the contract. It is said that some heavily loaded merchant ships with valuable goods from overseas went into the network.
After the British fleet reached the English Channel on October 3, 1744 , it was hit by a violent storm that even devastated London . The Exeter , an escort ship, lost its main mast, while the Duke , also an escort ship, had all of its sails torn and the ship itself was ten feet under water. The last time the Victory was sighted by accompanying ships of the association on October 4, 1744 off the Channel Islands , as it separated more and more from its escort ships. Due to the storm, the fleet was widely dispersed, but later reached home waters and was able to moor in England. The Victory, however, never reached a safe harbor, but went down with the 1150-strong crew, so that even a search operation carried out by several fast frigates was unsuccessful on the following days.
Based on the last sighting position and the adjoining course, it was previously suspected that the accident was at the Casquets , a small group of rocks near Alderney , where many ships have already sunk.
Some wreckage of Victory exaggerated over time on some Channel Islands as flotsam on: two top masts bearing the inscription "VICT" and a sail with the inscription "Victy" were shortly after the accident on the Channel Island of Guernsey washed up. Some pump fragments, parts of the carriage marked GR (George Rex) and some oars marked "Victory" were washed up on the island of Sark . The exact location of the accident remained hidden for more than 250 years.
The sinking of the Victory was the worst shipping disaster in British waters without the effects of war. In retrospect, Admiral Balchen and a lighthouse keeper on Alderney were also blamed for the shipwreck . These allegations may turn out to be unjustified based on newly discovered facts.
Wreckage
In 2008 the supposed wreck of the Victory was discovered by the Odyssey Marine Exploration about 100 km from its presumed sinking place . In the meantime, she has obtained approval for the recovery from the rightful owner of the wreck, the British Ministry of Defense . The modalities and extent of the rescue are currently being discussed, as it violates international agreements and there are doubts about the legality of the permit. In a similar case, the recovery company had difficulties implementing its business model.
So far, two bronze cannon barrels from the years 1726 and 1734 have been recovered (1 × 12 pounder, 1 × 42 pounder), one of them with the coat of arms of George I , the other with the coat of arms of George II , which can be found on board the ship of the line Victory could have found. Various pieces of debris could also be made out on the sea floor, including other bronze cannon barrels of various calibres, cannon wheels, anchors, ballasting material, wooden planks, the 10 m long oar and objects of daily use as well as the wreckage stored in several waves of sand. Human remains (a skull and other skeletal bones) were also found there, but left on the sea floor for reasons of piety.
The determination of whether the find is actually the Victory as suspected is still pending, but it seems very likely: In addition to the evaluation of further artifacts from the seabed, exclusion criteria seem to be decisive in the identification of the former ship. So not very many ships of the Royal Navy come into question that have been lost, were at the same time a ship of the first rank and carried 42-pound bronze cannons with them, which were also provided with the coats of arms of Kings George I and George II .
According to the current state of knowledge, only four ships meet these criteria: the
- Ville de Paris , (formerly French Prize) from 1757,sunkoff Newfoundland in1782
- Queen Charlotte from 1790, who burned off Livorno (Italy) in 1800
- Royal George from 1756 whichcapsizedduring repair work at Spithead in 1782
- Victory from 1737, which sank in the English Channel in 1744.
Since the Victory is the only ship that list, which is lost in the English Channel, the salvage company currently assumes, in fact, the correct wreck of 1744 sunken Victory to have found. In February 2012 an agreement was reached in London according to which 80% of the find can be withheld by the exploration company, 20% should go to the United Kingdom and British researchers should be able to evaluate all finds. This was preceded by the establishment of the Maritime Heritage Foundation by Lord Lingfield, a descendant of Admiral Balchen. The Ministry of Defense, which is responsible for the management of shipwrecks of the Royal Navy, then bequeathed the wreck to the Victory to the Maritime Heritage Foundation, which then announced the 80-20% regulation. Experts see this practice as a commercial looting of an archaeological find that has been boosted by a policy change in the UK. The salvage of the wreck was supposed to start in 2012, but it still seems to depend on a few reports.
Trivia / Varia
For the Royal Navy and the Admiralty , the ship's sinking was a major loss. As a result of the accident and other factors, a revolutionary rethinking process began in the military shipbuilding of the Kingdom of Great Britain, so that from now on other construction patterns were used, which were pushed and implemented in the two decades after the sinking in particular. To increase the stability and at the same time to preserve the hull, from 1761 the underwater hull was covered with copper plates. As a side effect, the mussel growth and the feeding by shipworms were also reduced . The then typical system of rebuilding ships was finally abandoned.
At that time, miniature ship models were made for the Admiralty Board . An 18th century model ship with no masts or cannons is in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich . Another historic model of the Victory , also from the 18th century, is privately owned by Earl Cawdor at Cawdor Castle in Scotland. In contrast to the Greenwich model, this 1:48 scale model is completely rigged and equipped with cannons and anchors.
Notes / individual evidence
- ↑ The prefix HMS was not introduced into the Royal Navy until 1789. Consequently, the name of the ship, which was completed in 1737, is simply "Victory"
- ↑ The picture shows the ship in distress. In order to get help from the surrounding ships, some signal cannon shots were fired, which would have made the search easier for helpers.
- ^ Imperial Foot, Kingdom of Great Britain
- ↑ The Victory , built in 1665 , which was also referred to as Little Victory , does not fall into the counting scheme of some statisticians, as it was not classified as a flagship or a ship of the line of 1st or 2nd rank and thus fell out of the traditional series of other name-bearing ships. According to these statisticians, the Victory , built in 1737, is only the fourth ship with this name. For this article, however, the absolute number of women named is taken into account
- ^ Clowes, 1966, p. 108
-
↑ The 1719 establishment first issued binding guidelines for the construction of ships in the Royal Navy . The following basic dimensions and armament were provided for a 100-gun ship of the 1st rank:
- 1,869.45 long tons (1,899.4 t)
- Length: 174 ft (53.0 m) (battery deck)
- Keel Length : 140 ft 7 in (42.8 m)
- Width: 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Draft: 20 ft (6.1 m) (from 1719); 20 ft 6 in (6.2 m) (from 1733)
- Main battery deck: 28 × 42 or 32 pounders
- Middle battery deck: 28 × 24 pounders
- Upper battery deck: 28 × 12 pounders
- Back deck: 12 × 6 pounders
- Forecastle: 4 × 6 pounders
- ↑ as stated in 1737 by Blaise Ollivier (French shipbuilder), quoted in. in Roberts 1992, pp. 126-129.
- ↑ It was not until the successor, the HMS Victory , that the stern transom was decorated more subtle, as the heavy carvings often led to a deterioration in the sailing properties, because the stern became very heavy and the center of gravity of the ship shifted to the rear.
- ↑ The Victory is also referred to as the “baroque ship” by some experts because of its allegorical carvings.
- ↑ The old Victory apparently burned to the waterline. The remaining pieces of wood were dismantled and placed on the shipyard for further use. In addition to the further use in shipbuilding, there was also a use z. B. as firewood in question
- ↑ Due to a lack of wood, insufficiently seasoned wood was also used, so that the structural strength, especially under operating conditions and against the background of progressive rotting processes, was not the same for the ship at every point of the shell from the point of view of the nature of the wood.
- ↑ Later ships were only equipped with iron cannons or a mixed armament of bronze and iron cannons. Towards the end of the 18th century, iron cannons became more and more popular
- ^ Roberts, 1992, p. 150
- ^ Winfield, 2007
- ↑ a b Marcus, 1975
- ↑ Wilkinson, 2004, pp. 85-89
- ↑ after Winfield, 2007
- ↑ Aldridge, 2000; Charnock 1795
- ↑ Balchen was Admiral of the White
- ↑ Winfield, 2007. After Whitney died, Richard Lestock was used as interim captain from August 1740 to December 1740, when he was replaced by Samuel Faulkner . Faulkner was already second captain of the ship under Whitney
- ↑ Clowes, 1966, p. 91; Richmond, 1920. p. 108
- ^ Richmond, 1920, p. 107
- ↑ cited in the financial publication Amsterdamsche Courant of 18/19. November 1744. According to experts, the 4 tonne sum of money in the form of 100,000 gold coins, presumably with Portuguese coinage ( Moidore and / or bullion coins ) was taken on board. These gold coins are worth almost 780 million euros today.
- ↑ According to the Convoi and Cruizers Act of 1708, the captain of the conquering ship was entitled to 3/8 of the prize value, 1/8 went to the flag officer , if the ship was z. B. sailed in the association under his command.
- ↑ Beatson, 1804, p. 224 and Tindal 1787, p. 112
- ↑ The salvage company discovered the Sussex , which sank in 1694 off Gibraltar, in 2006 , but the suspected billion-dollar treasure could not be found to this day because the Spanish authorities did not give permission. Another successful search off the coast of Spain carried out in 2007, which had a wreck with the code name "Black Swan" in focus and in which the company was able to secretly recover hundreds of thousands of coins and fly them to the USA, resulted in a lawsuit that is currently being held in front of a US Court is hearing.
- ↑ In the course of the wreckage of the St. George , a skeleton of a former crew member was recovered in Danish waters and exhibited in a museum in Thorsminde. This process sparked British protests and the remains were finally buried. They didn't want to make this mistake in the case of the Victory .
- ↑ Hepper, 1994, Lyon 1993, Winfield, 2007
- ↑ http://archaeologik.blogspot.de/2012/06/die-odyssee-der-hms-victory-ein.html
- ↑ The model there is not called the Victory , but is assigned to the Victory by several independent experts.
- ↑ a predecessor of today's Earl Cawdor was Lord of the Admiralty in 1741
literature
- Aldridge, D., Sir John Norris, 1660 (?) - 1749, Precursors to Nelson. British Admirals of the Eighteenths Century , London, 2000
- Beatson, R., Naval and Military Memoirs of Great Britain, 1727 to 1783 , Vol 1, Edinburgh, 1804
- Charnock, J., Biographia Navalis; or Impartial Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of the Officers of the Navy of Great Britain from the Year 1660 to the Present Time , Volume 3, London, 1795.
- Clowes, WL, The Royal Navy, A History from the earliest Time until now , Volume 3, London, 1966.
- Hepper, DJ, British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail 1650-1859 , Jean Boudroit Publications, Rotherfield, 1994
- Howard, Dr. F., Sailing Ships of War 1400-1860 . Conway Maritime Press, London, 1979, ISBN 0-85177-138-6
- Lavery, Brian, The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850 , Conway Maritime Press, 2003, ISBN 0-85177-252-8 .
- Lyon, D., The Sailing Navy List. All the Ships of the Royal Navy Built, Purchased and Captured 1688-1860 , Conway Maritime Press, 1993
- Marcus, GJ, Heart of Oak. A Survey of British Sea Power in the Georgian Era , Oxford University Press, 1975
- Richmond, HW, The Navy in the War of 1739-48 , Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, 1920
- Roberts, DH, 18th Century Shipbuilding. Remarks on the Navies of the English & the Dutch from Observations Made at their Dockyards in 1737 by Blaise Ollivier, Master Shipwrights to the King of France , Jean Boudriot Publications, Rotherfield, 1992
- Tindal, N., The Continuation of Mr. Rapin's History of England; From the revolution to the Present Times , Vol. 21, London, 1787
- Wilkinson, C., The British Navy and the State in the Eighteenth Century , Woodbridge, 2004
- Winfield, R., British Warships in the Age of Sail , 1714-1792, Minnesota, 2007
Web links
- World online article about the wreck find
- Report from the wreck site by Wessex Archeology . Accessed January 31, 2011
Coordinates: 49 ° 40 ′ 48 " N , 3 ° 47 ′ 54" W.