Victory - Bit saily

[benjenbav]

Sorry, I know the ship that became Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar was a rag 'n' stick but it did have some interesting bits of machinery on board.

Anyway, I thought the engineering enthusiasts on here might have something to say about the reported (Times 24/2/2015) last-minute discovery by one of the shipbuilders that when the ship was finished and about to be launched it was wider than the dock gate through which it had to fit.

Cue some frantic chipping away at the dockyard timbers and the job was a good 'un.

 

[Poignard]

Somewhere I have a book about Thames sailing barges and it has an account of a barge being built in a dock (unusually) and when the frames had been erected it was realised that she was going to be slightly too wide to pass through the gates. The shipwrights got busy with their adzes and shaved down the frames on one side only. She was then planked up and passed out through the gates safely.

According to the book she sailed perfectly well, despite being lop-sided.

 

[jfm]

Ooh thanks for pointing to this story bjb. The wiki article makes excellent reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victory. The bit about the ship being delayed, then sailing to the med in search of another ship that Nelson was on, then shenanigans of a transat only to find the other ships were gone, reminded me of the luxuries we have of communication and GPS