Comments on: HMS Victory Discovered

HMS Victory Discovered

tellurian — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:59:54 -0800

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).

By: Faze

Faze — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:11:53 -0800

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

By: Flashman

Flashman — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:13:29 -0800

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.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:19:21 -0800

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.

By: filthy light thief

filthy light thief — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:50:15 -0800

While not eating fish is the quick solution, you can also choose your food wisely. Also ... *spoiler* ... They found the ship.

By: Chuffy

Chuffy — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 16:52:45 -0800

I heard that the ancestor of the captain dropped her $20 million necklace into the drink after they found the brass cannons...

By: a3matrix

a3matrix — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:16:44 -0800

Possibly you meant descendant? The show on TDC (?) has been interesting to watch. That 42 pounder the raised was huge.

By: The Whelk

The Whelk — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:52:24 -0800

It didn't disappear. It's just waiting. Man, the timestorms of 2012 are going to be spectacular.

By: GeckoDundee

GeckoDundee — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:56:46 -0800

Discovery Channel video here.

By: lundman

lundman — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:38:21 -0800

Neat, thanks.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:28:36 -0800

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.

By: lundman

lundman — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:46:44 -0800

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.