Victory found

[PMarione]

Odyssey Marine Exploration divers claim to have found wreck of HMS Victory.

Odyssey said the 31 brass cannons and other evidence on the wreck allowed definitive identification of the Victory, 175-foot sailing ship that was separated from its fleet during a storm and sank in the English Channel on Oct. 4, 1744, with at least 900 men aboard.
The ship was the largest and, with 110 brass cannons, the most heavily armed vessel of its day.
It was the predecessor for the HMS Victory famously commanded by Horatio Nelson decades later.

So far, Odyssey has recovered two brass cannons from the wreck of the Victory and continues to examine and map the debris field, which lies about 330 feet beneath the surface, Stemm said. The company said it is negotiating with the British government over collaborating on the project.

Newspapers of the day and other historical records indicate that the Victory sank off the Channel Island of Alderney near Cherbourg, France.
A 1991 British postage stamp depicts the Victory crashing on the rocks there.
Pieces of the ship had washed up in various places, but its final resting place had remained a mystery.
The belief that the Victory had crashed onto the rocks had marred an otherwise exemplary service record of the ship's commander, Sir John Balchin, and a lighthouse keeper on Alderney was prosecuted for failing to keep the light on. Odyssey believes the discovery exonerates both men.

The Victory was returning from Lisbon, Portugal, and was probably transporting 100,000 gold Portuguese coins for merchants, according to Odyssey's research. The ship had sailed there to help rescue a Mediterranean convoy blockaded by the French in the River Tagus at Lisbon.

The wreck site is roughly 70 feet by 200 feet and littered with other debris, Odyssey said.

There are to many articles to give links, just google "victory 1744".

@+P

[alexlitandem]

Very emotional and thought-provoking `declaration of find'.

Just more on the same here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5635745.ece

[PMarione]

Odyssey seems more interested in bullion and pieces of eight than by the archaeological value of their findings.

More Long John Silver and Indiana Jones than Schliemann.

@+P

[PMarione]

Here are pics of a contemporary model:
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/displayRepro.cfm?reproID=D3816_4#content

[alexlitandem]

Whenever I - I was going to say `one' - look(s) closely at such `models', I'm somehow even more in awe of both the design `genius' and the build `genius' at play, than when I'm 'merely' observing, say, `Victory' at Portsmouth or when meandering inside her glorious decks.

Is this some kind of childhood thing? Do I / we want to play with the `toy'?

In any event, the models invariably make me - from my position of ignorant observer - love the beauty of both the models and the modelled even more.

[PMarione]

Here is the wreck report:
http://shipwreck.net/pdf/OMEPapers2-HMS_Victory.pdf

[PMarione]

More in today TimesOnline:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article5775531.ece