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Hms Victory

In the movies when ships fire these old cannons to go BOM BOOM BOOM - It is not at all realistic when they can only be fired every three hours. They get so hot sailors, have to pour buckets of water on them to cool the metal down before they can be fired again. I guess that is why they are placed on different levels of deck
 
Hi Beryl
the large cannons on the Victory are on 3 deck so they could have a bigger fire power against its enamy the French and the Spannish ships of the line. It was'nt the amount of cannons it was the quickness they could fire off munissions against the enamy ships. The gun crews practised every day till they where the quickest in te world. They could fire, cool, clean, reload and fire in under 90 seconds. If they where not BANG ON to coin the phrase, when they pushed in a monkey which was the gun powder parcels, it would explode causeing death and Meyhem on the decks. Thats what put THE GREAT in BRITTAIN. If the cannons also got to hot the expansion would not allow the Cannon ball to entre the fireing barrel. Cannons where made in the Black Country along with the Balls that where made by pouring hot cast metal from a tower into water and oil tanks, they cooled to be near perfectly round.
The Iron work around Horatio Nelsons statue in the Bull Ring was reputed to be made of cannons from the Victory in 1812. His bit of stuff on the side Lady Hamilton toured this great City to cast her eyes on this the first monument to be raised to cellebrate the life of Lord Nelson in England



Beryl M said:
In the movies when ships fire these old cannons to go BOM BOOM BOOM - It is not at all realistic when they can only be fired every three hours. They get so hot sailors, have to pour buckets of water on them to cool the metal down before they can be fired again. I guess that is why they are placed on different levels of deck
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when i was on board the Victory one of the things i was told was it had a crew of 800 men i was thinking where do they all sleep would there have been a day and night shift.
 
Alf,

thanks for that very interesting i wonder whot the grog was like, 821 people on board then.

i would be a bit wrinkly if i had have been one of the ship mates. :cry:

is that right there is only one rope on a ship. :rolleyes:
 
Yes, there is only one 'rope' on a ship, and that is the bell rope. Everything else is a 'line'.
 
Hi Bob Thanks for the info I would never have thought they could fire cool, clean, reload and fire under 90 seconds that is amazing.
 
Catkin said:
A tad of information, (for the children) they have just found out that he did not die on that the particular spot, where it is stated and Hardy was not with him when he died because he had been called back up on deck, although he did say kiss me hardy and Hardy kissed him twice once on the forehead and once on his cheek, he also said I am Killed...CAT
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Nelson did not say "kiss me hardy" What he did say was "Kismet Hardy"
Kismet means fate.
 
There is always a lot of myths floating around famous men and women in history. Peoole tend to believe what they want to believe no matter how strong an augument there is. . . I believe Nelson did say 'Kiss Me Hardy'
 
Lloyd,
that is right it is the one on the bell, an old salt down here said the rest were strings and wirers. :rolleyes:
 
I am sticking to my guns. Boom Boom, who knows the truth, will we ever know. I would like to think that he kissed him. I think that that would be a friendship token...Cat....... Kismet as in Fate...... also means the end.
 
I have just read your quote Alf,... i had to laugh.

This is Hardy would you let him kiss you.?

and the old saying is

Any port in a storm...Cat x

We can't all be handsome like you Alf. Pass the butter
 
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Just to correct someone who pointed out that cannon balls were made by dropping molten iron from a tower. Cannon balls were cast to precise diameters & many have an imprint which can give clues as to their age & origins.
I think you are thinking of a shot tower where molten lead is poured thru a copper sieve & falls to a vat of water far below, this only works with lead as it's not actually red hot when molten. The resulting shot has then to be sorted into different sizes & any that aren't perfect are remelted. Before the days of cartridges leather shot flasks would be worn on the belt of gamekeepers or whoever had use for a muzzle loading shotgun.
Shot towers are still in use today
 
hello all, ex navy in the house ready to answer all your victory queries...

british gun crews were the fastest in the world and could reload and fire roughly every 90 seconds, it was only the insides of the bore of the cannon that were cooled and this was achieved with the use of a wet sponge on a stick, they also had what looked like a corkscrew on a stick to remove bits of burning rag left inside. Cannon balls were cast not dropped from a height, this can be seen in the cast line around some of them, cannonballs were solid and therefore would not explode, the only exploding type of projectile was the grape shot which was a cannister of ballbearings which separated on leaving the barrel and was designed to rip sails and tear flesh. Solid cannonballs were designed to break through hulls and cause destruction that way.
Young boys were employed as powder monkeys, their job was to fetch bandoliers of shot charge from the magazine which was located in the middle of the ship, basically it was a linen bag filled with gunpowder, they only fetched the amount that they could fire in 30 minutes, any more was deemed a hazard and because it could not be kept dry (hence the phrase keep your powder dry)
The victory did have a crew of 800 and in peace time they lived, slept and ate between their guns, they were also allowed mistresses on board, occasionally sailing with them any children born of these relationships were termed 'son of a gun' now you know...
Nelson wasnt the captain of the victory, hardy was... nelson was the flag admiral and was merely based on the victory. He was shot whilst on the upper deck from the mizzen mast of the redoubtable by a french sharpshooter, the musket penetrated his shoulder through his left lung and lodged against his spine. It is likely he died from a combination of blood loss and aspyxia literally drowning on his own blood! He was taken down between decks where he was tended by the ships surgeon, he called for hardy several times to enquire on how the battle was proceeding, on the last occasion when hardy became angry at nelsons demise he said to hardy 'kismet hardy' which quite righly means fate... when he died rather than being thrown overboard with the rest of the dead he was preserved in a large cask of rum (nelsons blood) and taken back for burial in london... there are no such things as rope in the navy, apart from the bell rope there are hawsers, springs and lines... hope this has helped, any more info required give me a shout!!! :P
 
Very Good Mr. Llamafama, very instructive. Now just to round off give them all a taste of the cat.Its the Captains birthday and we are having a whip round.

I'll get me coat on the way out.
 
A few years ago i took up model boat building, started with a few basic models and eventually worked my way up to the more difficult models, it took me 6 months to complete this model of the Victory. from bowsprit to stern its just under 4 feet long. Eric
 
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Llamafarmer,
thankyou for all that correct information and the bit about the only rope on a ship is the rope on the bell, an old salt toled me that one a few years back :thumbsup:
 
I can remember visiting Madam Tussuad's,London during the 1960' on a trip of some sorts. The reason for the visit was an anniversary of Trafalgar. You could walk through a depiction of a gun deck on the Victory during the battle.

Did anyone else visit?
 
I didnt visit that part of Madam Tussuads but I remember the display which was a long standing display and was still there in the mid 1970's when I visited on a school trip.
As far as HMS Victory is concerned she is the oldest ship still holding a commission and I used to pass her frequently when leaving and entering the dockyard to get to my own ship.
I did visit her once after I left the Navy and found it very interesting. Shame that space couldnt be found in Portsmouth for HMY Britannia but I guess Pompey's loss is Edingburgh's gain
 
Bit before my time then, :) But a time when the RN was still the RN and WRENS werent allowed at sea lol. I dont think anything survives of my Navy career now apart from HMS LegoLand (AKA as Releigh and Yeovilton)
 
Parts of Ganges :(, last visit 4 5 6 May this year, and still the Belfast :), Dryad is not Dryad anymore :(
 
Whats Dryad become? I was a Bunting Tosser (not rude by the way non naval peeps) so I was very much a HMS Mercury man (thats now gone), I also did HMS Brum (gone) HMS Plover (gone) and HMS Tamar (gone).
Ah Belfast at least she is preserved, I visited her on a secondry school trip just after she had been moored in London but before the Navy had officially handed her over to the civilian authourities and was shouted at by a RN Chief for running around the upper deck of his 'war canoe'
 
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