HMS Victory (1737)

:"For the museum ship at Portsmouth on which Admiral Nelson was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar, see HMS "Victory".

HMS "Victory" was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the dimensions of the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment at Portsmouth Dockyard, and launched on 23 February 1737.

Construction

A small number of the timbers used in the construction of "Victory" were taken from the remains of the previous HMS|Victory|1695|6, which had caught fire and been burnt to the waterline in February 1721 whilst having weed burned from her bottom (in a process called 'breaming'). Officially a rebuild of the previous vessel, the new "Victory" was launched in 1737 and became the flagship of the Channel Fleet under Sir John Norris in 1741. She was the last British First Rate to be armed entirely with brass cannon.Fact|date=August 2008

Loss of "Victory"

She was wrecked with the loss of her entire crew whilst returning to England as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Balchen after relieving Sir Charles Hardy, who had been blockaded in the Tagus estuary. As the fleet reached the English Channel on 3 October 1744 it was scattered by a large storm. At around 15:30 on 4 October the ships accompanying "Victory" lost sight of her near to the Channel Islands. She is believed to have been wrecked the following day on Black Rock just off the Casquets, with the loss of her entire complement.

Frigates were dispatched across the English Channel to search for the missing battleship, last seen wallowing on the horizon on 4 October. Eventually, Captain Thomas Grenville of HMS "Falkland" landed at Guernsey in the Channel Islands to provision and there heard from locals that wreckage and part of a topmast had washed up on the island's shores. Further investigation proved that the wreckage had indeed come from the "Victory", which was believed to have run into the Casquets, a group of rocks nearby. Other wreckage was washed up on Jersey and Alderney, whose inhabitants had heard distress guns the night before the wreck but were unable to provide aid in the severe storm. Of the 1,150 sailors aboard "Victory", no trace was ever discovered.

Her wreck has not yet been located.

Notes

References

*Colledge
*Lavery, Brian (2003) "The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850." Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.
* cite web
title = The Life of Sir John Balchen
work = The Lives of British Admirals, 1787
url = http://www.manfamily.org/PDFs/life%20of%20john%20balchen.pdf
accessdate = 2007-11-09
* [http://www.twogreens.co.uk/wakeup/ships/6victory.htm How many ships named "Victory"?] Wake up to Nelson. Retrieved 1 August 2008.
* [http://www.balchin-family.org.uk/family_history/people/admiral/search_casquets.html The Search for The "Victory".] The Balchin Family Society. Retrieved 1 August 2008.