#naval victory

[vox-anglosphere]

The Lion in Winter - Trafalgar Square, London

[ltwilliammowett]

HMS Victory's upper gun deck: thirty 12-pounder cannon, photo by Maritime Photographic

[the-golden-vanity]

I think the thing I like most about The Sea, as, like... a setting or a concept, is that in its vastness, its untameable nature, its unknown secrets, you have a lot of historically documented events that sound more like tales out of mythology and folklore.

Take, for instance, the fate of the Victory Expedition of 1829.

The Victory expedition was a private polar expedition led by veteran British explorer Captain John Ross. Twenty-three men set sail for the Canadian Arctic on the steamship Victory, but when the ship became trapped in the polar ice, there was no way to free it. The crew spent four years in the frozen north, surviving on rations from the wreck of a previous polar exploration ship.

Eventually, twenty survivors packed their belongings into small boats and hauled them over ice towards open water. And in that open water, there was a ship, the whaler Isabella of Hull.*

The Isabella's crew couldn't believe their eyes, because, as they told the Victory's survivors, "Captain Ross has been dead these two years."

And if that wasn't strange enough, the (very much alive) Captain Ross of the Victory had, on a previous Arctic expedition, been captain of the Isabella.

*Side note: the more I read about the Age of Sail, the more I realize that wherever official Explorers™ from a given Western nation go, their whalers have already beaten them there. Sometimes that's even the reason the explorers were sent.

[illustratus]

Trafalgar; Victory at noon - H.M.S. 'Victory' breaking the enemy line and raking the stern of the French flagship by Montague Dawson

[captain-price-unofficially]

USS Ronald Reagan in Da Nang, 2018

[clove-pinks]

A part of the frame of USS Niagara (1813) on display at the National Museum of the Great Lakes.

While I have known about the USS Niagara that still sails the Great Lakes, until relatively recently I thought she was entirely a modern replica and not the original vessel—although the "original" part can be disputed after so many extensive restorations (Niagara was also sunk in 1820 and raised in 1913).

Brig Niagara (her current incarnation) in full sail off South Bass Island, Lake Erie, photography by Lance Woodworth.

Also in the Great Lakes Museum: a cribbage board made from a piece of Niagara!

I'm reminded of the long and busy trade in objects allegedly made from pieces of HMS Victory and other famous ships.

[jamesfitzjamesdotcom]

Age of Sail ❤️

Ships: HMS Dreadnought (1906) and HMS Victory (1765)

[nocternalrandomness]

 Jolly Rogers Tomcat over the Croat coastline near Pula

[angryblueoat]

“who would win in a fight between hms victory and uss constitution” they would kiss sloppy style. they would have lesbian sex. do you understand?

[victusinveritas]

Admiral Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, covered in snow at its berth in Portsmouth Dockyard, England.

[dukeofriven]

The really fun thing about the Royal Navy in the 20th century is that they produce the same kind of stunning paintings and visuals of power projection that the age of sail had done the previous century, but unlike the 19th century ships when you look up the 20th century ship's history and battle honours they almost always either 1) sunk like chumps to torpedoes or 2) did shit-all from the day they slid down the slips until they were broken up for scrap. If you want to understand the history of the Royal Navy from, oh, 1914 to the present, just think of that one dril tweet:

This sentiment is why they spend billions of pounds the UK doesn't posses to build aircraft carriers that don't work, and they do so because a steady diet of ersatz imperial glory committed to canvas (and snazzy white tropical uniforms) tell them that the Royal NAcy has a long and proud history. Which is does. Just don't ask about anything recent (like, say, the last century).

HMS Revenge coming out of a squall - Cecil Wynd

[vox-anglosphere]

HMS Victory being towed to Gibraltar with the dead body of Lord Nelson after his historic defeat of Napoleon's navy - 21 October 1805

[ltwilliammowett]

The two oldest commissioned ships of the World - USS Constitution (227 years old) and HMS Victory (259 years old)

[illustratus]

The Battle of Trafalgar: HMS 'Victory' Steering for the Enemy by Eduardo de Martino

[townpostin]

NTHA Clinches Victory in Sub-Junior State Hockey Championship

Naval Tata Hockey Academy triumphs over Khunti in thrilling final match The Naval Tata Hockey Academy (NTHA) team emerged victorious in a high-stakes final against Khunti at the Sub-Junior State Hockey Championship. JAMSHEDPUR – The Naval Tata Hockey Jharkhand Sub-Junior State Hockey Championship 2024 (Men) concluded with NTHA securing a decisive win against Khunti. The championship’s final match…

[clove-pinks]

The gunner was the one man whose carelessness could destroy the ship in a moment, and the Regulations showed that the Admiralty was well aware of it: there were twenty-six instructions for the lieutenant, thirty-eight for the master, eleven for the bosun, but thirty-three for the gunner. They ranged from not swabbing a gun with water 'when it grows hot, for fear of splitting' to coating guns with a mixture of tar and warm tallow if they had to be carried into the hold. [...] The last instruction said: 'No person shall be warranted as gunner before he has passed an examination before a mathematical master, and three able gunners of the Navy, and from them procure a certificate of his qualification'.

— Dudley Pope, Life in Nelson's Navy

Art from "Uniforms of The Royal Navy - HMS Victory Gunner, 1805" (1980s postcard series).