Nelson & His World

Here is a fabulous photo of a three-decker & steam tugs, but is it HMS Victory or not? http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/community/r ... _1_2516872

The Victory had her bows altered after Trafalgar and restored back since going into dry dock, so maybe it is, but I don't think she had that much superstructure added.

Despite the absurd headline, the ship is fully rigged apart from her top gallant masts and yards, which were in any case regularly struck and got up (removed and replaced) according to wind conditions. - Which in turn makes you think about the demands placed on the Victory's masts and rigging these days, left up in all weathers.

So - which ship is it?

There were not many surviving three deckers around in c.1900, and even fewer in Portsmouth Harbour.

My guess is that the speculation attached to the photo is correct and that this ship is HMS St Vincent. We know it was used as a training ship moored off Haslar Creek until 1906 when she was broken up. This which would account for the extensive and ugly accomodation superstructure.

Another clue (as Andrew Lambert notes in his 'The Last Sailing Battlefleet') is that the St Vincent had her poop deck removed in 1849 which left her with a uniquely flat profile. A water colour by Frank Watson Wood painted in 1904, with bow views of Victory and St Vincent (the latter moored slightly behind), shows this, the upward sweep of Victory's upper decks contrasting with flat lines of St Vincent. I don't know if my eyes are deceiving me, but the profile of the ship show on the photo looks flat and lacking in sweep!

Perhaps the photo was taken in 1906 when the tugs were taking her to be scrapped. It would have been a good reason to commemorate the occasion on film.

Brian

I am sure you are right, Brian. Here is a photo of HMS St Vincent: http://www.flickr.com/photos/historicdo ... 187023933/ It looks an exact match to me - enlarged here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/historicdo ... otostream/

And this page has a photo of her being broken up on the Thames in 1906 (still with her masts in at this stage): http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyBri ... pbreak.htm

Just wondering.

Anybody any idea what all this paraphernalia is along the side of the ship?

I think some of it is davits for hoisting boats out of the water.

Yes, they would be some of the davits for hoisting the boats and not of course part of the original ship. I would imagine there are others on the port side.

These training ships had a large number of boys, who took part in a lot of boatwork – so all these davits would have been necessary. Another point is that St Vincent (and I think it is her) seems to have retained her original masts. Often the masts on these ships were replaced with a rig of noticeably smaller proportions, perhaps because the crew were boys, although there may have been other reasons.

However, I'm not convinced that she is being towed away for breaking up, since she appears to be still habitable – there is what appears to be washing hanging from a line behind the foremast! That looks also like the Semaphore Tower directly behind the funnel of the tug on the port bow.

Looks like somebody has published a history of HMS St Vincent - hope I am interpreting that correctly!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/HMS-St-Vincent/ ... 338&sr=8-1

I would love to have a look at that - but can't really justify buying it with about 80 books already on my "wanted" list.

MB

Look out - There's an ominous 'sticker' on the cover: 'High quality content by Wikipedia articles', and the price is £21 for 70 pages. I think I'll pass on that - especially as the sellers are confused as to whether they are selling a print-on-demand book or a (US) DVD.

Tony

I thought it looked odd. But just looked at the Publisher's website and their business model is the publishing of university theses and dissertations etc. etc. No idea what that Wikipedia reference is all about.

So it may be legit - just very expensive for 70 pages as you say.

And even then may not throw any light on what is happening in the picture . . . . !!

MB

Mark, according to Wikipedia (which seemed a suitable place to look!), 'Alphascript Publishing (created in April 2009), Betascript Publishing (created in January 2010), Fastbook Publishing (created in July 2009) and Doyen Verlag (created in April 2010) are imprints of VDM Publishing, which publish and sell collections of freely available Wikipedia articles as commercial printed-on-demand books'.

The Wikipedia article lists some fairly heavy criticism of the publisher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDM_Publishing