HMS Victory Discovered

February 11, 2009 3:59 PM

World's Mightiest Ship Was Lost Without a Trace in 1744"In July 1744, she set sail to rescue a Mediterranean convoy blockaded by the French Brest fleet in the River Tagus at Lisbon. After victoriously chasing the French fleet away, she escorted the convoy into the Mediterranean Sea as far as Gibraltar, then set sail to return to her home port in England. During the course of the voyage, her fleet captured a number of valuable prizes, and she was also reported to have taken on board a consignment of 400,000 pounds sterling for Dutch merchants. On her return trip to England, HMS Victory was lost with all hands in a violent storm on October 5, 1744." [pdf]

The pdf is also interesting because it has information on how current fishing methods disturb shipwrecks, to wit:

Site 25C lies in an environmental zone that is notorious for trawler disturbance. Trawls equipped with chain mats and 'tickler' chains designed to fluidize the upper layers of sediment and drive flatfish from the seabed into a net weighing about 8,000kg, towed at about 11km per hour, may impact the same area of seabed multiple times each year, destroying 5-65% of the resident fauna and mixing the top 6cm of sediment in a single pass (Duplisea et al., 2001).

posted by tellurian (11 comments total)

The real treasure is the seabed and marine life. Don't eat fish.
posted by Faze at 4:11 PM on February 11

Huh. I never knew that the more famous HMS Victory, now dry docked in Portsmouth, had a precursor.
I have a piece of oak from that Victory, picked (ok, stolen) from a beam under renovation when I was on a Cub Scout tour of the ship.
posted by Flashman at 4:13 PM on February 11

The real treasure is the seabed and marine life. Don't eat fish.

The world will burn before I give up sushi.

Cool story, Tellurian. I have a thing about old shipwrecks.
posted by Justinian at 4:19 PM on February 11

While not eating fish is the quick solution, you can also choose your food wisely.

Also ... *spoiler* ...







They found the ship.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:50 PM on February 11

I heard that the ancestor of the captain dropped her $20 million necklace into the drink after they found the brass cannons...
posted by Chuffy at 4:52 PM on February 11 [1 favorite has favorites]

Possibly you meant descendant?
The show on TDC (?) has been interesting to watch. That 42 pounder the raised was huge.
posted by a3matrix at 5:16 PM on February 11

It didn't disappear. It's just waiting. Man, the timestorms of 2012 are going to be spectacular.
posted by The Whelk at 5:52 PM on February 11

Discovery Channel video here.
posted by GeckoDundee at 5:56 PM on February 11

Neat, thanks.
posted by lundman at 7:38 PM on February 11

I can't think of too many jobs in this world that are cooler than searching out and salvaging long-lost sea wrecks for treasure.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:28 PM on February 11

Although I must say it took them that long? We Swedes found Vasa in just 30 minutes! The Champagne bottle was still attached mind you.
posted by lundman at 11:46 PM on February 12