HMS Victory (1737)

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Career

Royal Navy Ensign

Ordered:
Laid down: 1726
Launched: 23 February 1737
Commissioned:
Decommissioned:
Fate: Wrecked 5 October 1744
Struck:
General Characteristics
Displacement: 1921 tons
Length: 174 ft 8 in (53 m) gun deck
Beam: 50 ft 5 in (15.4 m)
Draught: 18 ft (5.5 m)
Height from waterline to top of mainmast:
Propulsion: Sail
Speed:
Range: No fuel so limited by water and provisions
Complement: Around 900
Armour: None
Armament: 4 x 6 pounders (2.7 kg) on the forecastle

12 x 6 pounders (2.7 kg) on the quarter-deck
28 x 12 pounders (5 kg) on the upper deck
28 x 24 pounders (11 kg) on the middle deck
28 x 42 pounders (19 kg) on the main gun deck

HMS Victory, 100, was a first-rate ship of the line of Britain's Royal Navy.

Some few of the timbers used were taken from the remains of the previous HMS Victory which had caught fire and mostly burnt in February 1721 whilst having weed burned from her bottom (this process was called "breaming").

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.

She was wrecked with the loss of her entire crew whilst returning to England as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Balchen after breaking the blockade of Sir Charles Hardy, 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 was wrecked the following day on Black Rock just off the Casquets.

[edit] References

For the better known museum ship at Portsmouth on which Admiral Nelson was killed during the Battle of Trafalgar, see HMS Victory. For other ships of the same name see HMS Victory (disambiguation).