Thread: Easo's trip to HMS Victory

G'day all, before I went to bovington I stoped in Portsmouth to have a look at a boat older than settled Australian history.



Quite interesting walking around this ship, well mainly ducking.
800 crew!!! Looked at the spot where Lord Nelson was shot and the spot where he died. Had a look at its surviving sail from the battle of Trafailger (spelling). The sail is the biggest and oldest surviving textile in the world, no pics as they are not allowed in the room.

The monster


One of the gun decks, the crew slepted around their guns. There are tables that can be set up and folded away. Even the stairs to access the upper and lower decks can be removed and stowed for battle.



The gally, that provided all the tucker. Salted Meat twice a week, in a stew. Hard dry bickys and dayly rum rashon. Imagion carrying enough tucher for 800 blokes for 6 mounths.


The carpenters den. During battle his other job was to run around the outer pasigages looking for leaks and fixing them with wooden blocks and wedges.



The ancor rope room. This rope is about a foot and a bit in thickness.


Very interesting.
Enjoy Easo

The anchor rope or hawser is 16 inches in diameter and it took 160 men on the capstan winch to raise the anchor. The capstan goes through two decks to accomodate all the men needed to operate it.
The hawser was too thick to go around the capstan so smaller ropes were tied to it as it came up and these ropes were fed onto the capstan. The smaller ropes had to be cut off the hawser before they reached the capstan, this task was undertaken by the kids in the crew who would nip off the ropes, hence the term NIPPER.
I'm full of tall ship trivia !
Steve.