England Expects that every Man will do His Duty

Saturday 4th August saw me venture down to Portsmouth Harbour, ancestral home of the mighty Royal Navy of old (and the not so mighty Royal navy of the present day).

There is an impressive collection of vessels to be found floating in the harbour, and some equally impressive ones to be found in drydock. The historic dockyard is well worth a trip - for 15 quid entry you get to see every ship and exhibit in the dockyard, as well as a tour of the harbour itself.

So, let's get started.


This is HMS Warrior - the second ever all-iron warship, constructed back in 1860, in response to the French La Gloire, which, naturally, was the first ever all-iron warship. However, La Gloire didn't survive the passage of time - the French broke it up for scrap in the 1880's - but HMS Warrior endured as a training vessel and a coal bunker before it was rescued in 1979. It was restored and rebuilt over 8 years, and was sailed to it's current location in Portsmouth Harbour.


This is a shot of the bow - as you can see, Warrior carries masts, for sails, to propel her along when cruising peacefully. Should battle be joined, the ship would fire up the boilers and the propellors, and tear along at a "staggering" 8 knots. (Approximately 12 km/h).


Although a modern ship, in terms of being constructed from iron, as opposed from wood, it retained an old-fashioned armament. Warrior possessed several dozen muzzle loading cannon, just as the British ships of two-hundred years before had. In battle, Warrior would simply sail up alongside the opposing vessel, as it's cannonballs deflected harmlessly off it's massive iron sides, and unload a devastating broadside that would annihilate the hapless enemy.


This imposing brute (child in shot for scale) is what is known as a Carronade. It was based at the stern, mounted on rails set into the deck, and could be pivoted around to shoot anywhere in a 180 degree angle behind and to the side of the ship. These were used to sweep the enemy decks of riflemen and boarders, with a horrendous blast of "grapeshot". Grapeshot was comprised of hundreds of tiny musket balls, shrapnel and whatever else they could jam down the barrel of the gun. Think of it as a gigantic shotgun.


It wasn't all war and cannons on the ship however. This luxurious setting could be found in the officers' wardroom, and was where the officers sat down for dinner. Admittedly dinner was only likely to consist of salt beef and maybe some fresh meat if they had it, but at least the officers could get trashed on wine, unlike the men, who had to do with moldy biscuits and weak beer.


Moving along to another vessel and undeniably the most famous vessel in the entire British Navy, let alone Portsmouth.

HMS Victory was a 1st rate 3 decker, constructed from 1759 to 1767. It was already a well-known ship by the time of 1805, having served in several actions against the French. 1805 and Trafalgar however, would make it immortal. At the battle of Trafalgar, it served as Nelson's flagship, leading the attack that sliced through the French line, firing it's full broadside into the stern of the French flagship Bucentaur. Although heavily damaged at the battle, losing it's foremast, it survived, as did every other British ship. The French and Spanish fleet fared not so well - 18 ships sank or were captured. It was the most crushing naval victory of all time.

However, the British did suffer one loss, of irreplaceable value - Lord Admiral Nelson, the greatest English sailor of the age, was shot by a French musketball at the height of the battle and died some 3 hours later - surviving long enough to realise the magnitude of his great victory.


This is one of the gundecks of Victory, the upper gundeck, which carried the lightest cannons - although firing a cannonball weighing 24 pounds, they weren't exactly small. The height of the decks is the main thing to notice here, as it is scarcely 5 feet from deck to ceiling. Made strolling about a bit difficult for a 6 footer like myself.


It's always been seen as one of the great oddities of naval construction in the 17 and 1800's - that ships purposely built for war, armed to the teeth with great cannons, and their sides made up of reinforced oak panelling, would have at the stern a great wall of glass panels and flimsy pine. It was precisely this sort of stern on the Bucentaur that Victory unloaded 50 cannons into, it's entire broadside, poured in through the glass panels, travelling the entire length of the French ship. Approximately 240 men were killed or maimed in that first terrifying broadside.

It was on the Victory's quarterdeck, perched atop the stern, that Nelson received his fatal wound - a French musketball entered through his shoulder, travelled through his lungs and liver and finished up in the small of his back, shattering his spine. Unable to walk, and with his body quickly filling up with his own blood, he lasted only a few hours more. The crew carried him deep below decks to the Orlop deck, below the waterline, where he lay dying. News came down of the great victory, and he died, with the words "Thank God I have done my Duty."


(Pardon the No Photography sign)

They don't like you taking photos of this, since it's seen as disrespectful. Perhaps it is. But the way I see it, Nelson is long gone, as are his relatives and anyone else who knew him personally. It's not like I'm wandering round Auschwitz snapping photos of the gas chambers, where someone's mother and father met their premature end.

So, there you have it. Pressed against the white beam, Nelson perished on October 21st 1805 at 4:30pm.


So, now onto some more modern stuff. This is HMS Ark Royal, the Royal Navy's newest aircraft carrier. It's a lot smaller than the gigantic Yank carriers, since it only needs to be able to launch Harrier Jump Jets and helicopters.


This is one of several Royal Navy Frigates that were tied up in Harbour. Somehow, the ships of today do not have the same pomp and circumstance as the ships of yore. I think it's the grey.


And finally, we have a building known as the Spinnaker, a 185m observation tower that gives great views of Portsmouth Harbour. (Or so I'm told)

At 10 quid to go up, and faced with a line longer than Ben Hur, I decided against it.

So there you have it. Portsmouth. Well worth the trip down.