This is a link to a site with names of the ships of the Royal Navy at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th centuries,with,in many cases, a short history of the ship concerned.

http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/index.html

I remember a quizmaster (might have been Robert Robinson of blessed memory) remarking how unoriginal it was calling the latest helicoptrer carrier "HMS OCEAN" - and someone else moaning that "it should be HMS Devon, not HMS Devonshire" - in both cases, these, like many of those instanced in the list, are names with a history in the RN which goes back centuries (IIRC Tiger and Lion have been most used)

Wasn’t it HMS Tiger that was used for talks prior to Rhodesia’s UDI…?

Two sets of talks - one was Tiger, later they used Fearless. Tiger was an oddity - an all-gun ship from a period when everyone else was starting to fit missiles. Converted her to a "Helicopter Command Cruiser" later. Remember building a kit of her in my salad days http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/660_1_1002921.html

Although this is a nice conversion, IIRC they normally carried Wessex 3s, not Sea Kings.

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/ca/hms/tiger-700-ch/ch-index.html

What prompted me to respond was my first girlfriends father must have served on her, as he was also building a model of her, and liked to have me around to listen to him reminiscing as he worked on his model… the girlfriend was an only child and I think he was looking for a son-in-law… well he told me that years later.
But I remember Tiger… and UDI.


You’ll probably already think what a bulls****er I am, but I used to do subcontract work in Wessex helicopters at Yeovil… I used to make arrangements of complex curved beams with ‘gates’ in them, very difficult to make if you had no idea what they were. So I got sent there. They were overhead gantries for transporting the components around the factory… and it was the junctions I was making, like the points on a railway… but as it swung, it had to shut off the other tracks, or things could come crashing down… what a brilliant place to wander around in a lunch hour… the first thing I noticed was how clean it was in there, not a speck of dust, a scrap of paper, nor a plastic coffee cup anywhere, and a fantastic canteen. No them and us environment with the staff in there… management and shop floor all sat together… another job was a frame cast into the concrete to fasten the helicopters down and rev the guts out of them… see the rotors bend upwards… twas quite frightening.


It’s mostly all gone now.

I spent some time working on the software for the automatic milling machines at a BAe factory working on ... military aircraft (even now best not to say what/where), and the cleanliness rings a bell - did you see any evidence of "never re-use electronic components" policies? Used to upset me, though I did sort of see the logic

Blimey Gil… this was back in the 60s… things were still clockwork then.

Norman, the City of Adelaide saga is becoming even more convoluted, here's the latest http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-17174721

I think I said before that, in her incarnation as the Carrick, she was the RNVR club, moored in Glasgow and I've been to a wedding on board.

Do you know of the Glenlee, now moored beside our new Riverside Museum?
http://www.thetallship.com/

Gee thanks ferval… would you mind me passing that onto another forum… I’ve read up all I can find on the City of Adelaide… it would be such a shame to lose her, but sadly it’s the cost. To think as a small kid I used to get dumped off to play all day on the Cutty Sark while my parent went shopping… so many hiding places to lose the staff. Then just two years ago on my travels around Scotland and desperate for a B+B I ended up taking rooms in the house where her designer was born and lived… one Hercules Linton of Inverbervie.
Then sometimes if they wanted to go to Woolwich… I’d get dropped off on the Woolwich ferry… a steamship… it got to the point where I even managed to charm my way down into the engine room. Little did I know then I’d be spending a lot more of my time in my own engine room.

No problem Norman, spread the word.

I should really have added these two links as well for the Trincomalee and the Unicorn;

http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/

http://www.frigateunicorn.org

I'll add one, too



http://www.thedockyard.co.uk/NetsiteCMS/pageid/549/Gannet_photogallery.html

Anyone know anything of HMS Cleopatra in WW2?

My wife's uncle was on her when she was mined (I think) in the Med, and sent to Philadelphia for repairs. We got the basic info on Wiki, but little else.

Giraffe wrote:

Anyone know anything of HMS Cleopatra in WW2?

My wife's uncle was on her when she was mined (I think) in the Med, and sent to Philadelphia for repairs. We got the basic info on Wiki, but little else.

Have you seen this?

http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-Cleopatra.htm



BTW - In the RN, you serve IN rather than ON a ship. Trivial, but in some quarters, getting it the other way will get you a load of grief.

Thanks, Gil.

My wife's uncle met his future wife in Philly while the repairs were being done(she was actually an English nurse) and they went to live there after the war. We have been over to see his daughters several times, and I got to visit the battlefields of Brandywine, Gettysburg, and Sharpsburg while there.

This is another link;

http://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=home

Trike

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

Two sets of talks - one was Tiger, later they used Fearless. Tiger was an oddity - an all-gun ship from a period when everyone else was starting to fit missiles. Converted her to a "Helicopter Command Cruiser" later. Remember building a kit of her in my salad days http://www.anticsonline.co.uk/660_1_1002921.html

Although this is a nice conversion, IIRC they normally carried Wessex 3s, not Sea Kings.

http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/ca/hms/tiger-700-ch/ch-index.html

Ah the problem of putting new wine into old bottles....

The whole class were an oddity.They were actually laid down in wartime and launched immediately post war.HMS Tiger was actually laid down as HMS Bellerophon,HMS Lion was laid down as HMS Defence,with only HMS Blake keeping her original name! They then were laid up incomplete in the Gareloch till 1954 when it was decided to complete them with automatic 6 inch guns.Problem is that they didn't complete the reconstruction till 1959 by which time they were already obsolescent if not actually obsolete.They initially also had problems with the guns (Ive read one account of where it was reckoned an umbrella was required due to the amount of hydraulic fluid leaking!).That said,when on song they could put up a fearsome rate of fire.

By the 60's though they were looking a bit old hat (what with the RN deploying "Seaslug" and "Seacat")so it was decided to reconstruct them again as helicopter cruisers by removing the aft 6 inch turret.So far so good...

The problem was that the project ended up way over time and way over budget with the added problem of 1960's inflation,so much so that only two of the class were converted,HMS Tiger and HMS Blake.HMS Lion was paid off after just 12 years service and used for spares for HMS Tiger,so many spares were used that she was renamed HMS "Liger"!

The two survivors served through till the late 70's (1978/79 I believe) initially carrying Wessex,then SeaKing.They were eventually paid off as i)they took an awful lot of manpower to deploy and ii) the Invincibles would be coming on stream.HMS Blake paid off into the "Standby Squadron" at Chatham till 1982 when she was scrapped,HMS Tiger was paid off and listed for disposal in 1979.She wasn't actually scrapped till 1986.Both were actually surveyed for reactivation for the Falklands conflict (along with HMS Bulwark) but any plans to recommission them were abandoned when it was realised that they couldn't be brought back into service in enough time.

Gosh, HMS Tiger - I went to a reception on board that one yonks ago..... and also later did the grand tour. I recall the guns and the 'pad' but don't recall a Sea King mentioned..... whatever was on board was 'folded up,' anyway. Ship sevurity always amused, espcially when aboard submarines .

One of the most famous ships from this time is the USS Constitution, earned her nickname of "Old Ironsides" during her battle with HMS Guerriere on the 19th August 1812;

I don't think this rudder recently raised from the seabed near Poole is from a war ship, probably merchant but a fascinating find none the less

http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/08/2013/elaborately-carved-rudder-raised-from-seabed

With reference to the website in the original post, a useful website.  However, I've spotted one error: having helped conserve her remains, I can confirm that HMS Havick was an 18-gun sloop-of-war, not a 16-gunner.


Constitution's victory over Guerrier has been over-celebrated, IMO - the American was a far more powerful ship (44-gun, 24-pounder frigate compared to a 38-gun, 18-pounder frigate), not to mention much newer.  It was more a case of the American government using the defeat of an RN ship to try to whip up nationalism in the face of an unpopular war.

I recently visited Portsmouth History Dockyard.  A marvellous time comparing three generations of warship - the Mary Rose (1511 - the new museum is fantastic, by the way), HMS Victory (1765) and HMS Warrior (1860).  Interesting to what what changed and what stayed the same.  By the 1860s the age of the ship-of-the-line was was effectively over.  Although Warrior was only a 40-gun frigate, she could probably have blown a 100-gun battleship like Victory out of the water with a single broadside.

Some of the latest generation of warships were in-harbour.  They're much less attractive!  Even the big battleships of the two World Wars had a certain imposing elegance.  Where did it all go wrong?!

Anglo-Norman wrote:

Constitution's victory over Guerrier has been over-celebrated, IMO - the American was a far more powerful ship (44-gun, 24-pounder frigate compared to a 38-gun, 18-pounder frigate), not to mention much newer.  It was more a case of the American government using the defeat of an RN ship to try to whip up nationalism in the face of an unpopular war.

A question of perception A-N. While a more dispassionate view would agree that, everything else being equal, the larger frigate would win, the very fact that a British frigate had lost a ship vs ship engagement came as a major shock. There seems to have been an unfortunate growth in the RN and the British public at large, after Trafalgar that any British ship could take on and beat any equivalent foreign ship. So when Guerriere lost a frigate vs frigate fight*, questions were asked. When it happened again, United States vs HMS Macedonian and Constitution vs HMS Java the Admiralty instructed that no British 18-pounder frigate was to engage one of the three big American frigates (President was the third) single handed.


I believe this was the first time a British frigate had lost a one vs one fight since 1803.

The RN did have a few 24-pounder frigates of its own. One of which,HMS Endymion* captured President on the 15th January 1815. Despite what the Americans said at the time, and some historians have maintained since, it seems clear that Endymion did not need any help in winning.



*based on the captured French frigate Pomone

It's a little ironic that the purpose-built 'President-killers' (as I've seen them termed), HM Ships Leander and Newcastle, never engaged one of the ships they were built to eliminate, though they came close a couple of times.

Cutaway of HMS Victory

Take a look here to see what happened to a post-Trafalgar First Rate - HMS Nelson (120 guns)
http://www.cerberus.com.au/nelson_timeline.html

Triceratops wrote:

Cutaway of HMS Victory

Nice! From an Osprey book, by the looks of it.
I have the rather splendid HMS Victory 1765-1812: Owners' Workshop Manual. A beautifully illustrated book full of details of the construction, equipping, manning and operation of the world's oldest commissioned warship. Victory, planned by Sir Thomas Slade, was one of the most advanced British warships of the age in times of an unusually scientific approach to her design which drew heavily on captured French vessels. Despite her already advanced years at the time of Trafalgar she was still one of the best sailors in the fleet, drawing ahead of the column despite the light winds.

A-N, this was a French ship which was taken into the Royal Navy after being captured.

Here she is being scuttled in 1949;

Another Napoleonic era ship which lived passed the Age of Sail, HMS Foudroyant, onetime flagship of Lord Nelson, was being exhibited around various seaside resorts when she was driven ashore and wrecked at Blackpool in June 1897;

Triceratops wrote:

A-N, this was a French ship which was taken into the Royal Navy after being captured.

Ah, it breaks the heart

AIUI Implacable was renamed Foudroyant in 1943 - and Trincomalee also bore that name when she was used as a schoolship. Note, also - the Foudroyant wrecked at Blackpool wasn't the one captured from the French.

Keep up at the back there!

Gilgamesh of Uruk wrote:

Note, also - the Foudroyant wrecked at Blackpool wasn't the one captured from the French.

It's the Foudroyant built at Devonport in 1798, lasted 99 years.

This is quiet sad as well;

Ah yes - My Lady of Battles! Refused to go to the breakers yard, so she took the ground in Prussia Cove, defied attempts to refloat her, and had to be scrapped in situ. She or her classmate Queen Elizabeth (alterations in their long careers mean they weren't really sisters by then) SHOULD have been preserved, but, hey, we can't even manage to save the last Falklands veteran (Plymouth) from the breakers.

The French 118 gun Montebello launched in 1812, photographed in 1850;

Several interesting (IMO) pics here :-
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2013/january/31/130131-britannia-celebrates-its-150-year-bond-with-dartmouth

Montebello's a big girl!  The biggest girl of all (in terms of firepower, at least) of the Age of Sail was probably the Spanish 130-gun Santisima Trinidad.  This is a full-sized replica (although actually a converted merchantman):



I must try to get to Chatham this year for their special exhibition. A lot of big anniversaries this year, but one which has largely slipped under the radar is the 250th of the launch of the world's oldest commissioned warship, HMS Victory.

This is a photographic tour of Victory;

http://www.stvincent.ac.uk/Heritage/1797/Victory/index2.html

A replica of the French frigate L'Hermione, which carried Lafayette to aid the American revolution, set off yesterday on her maiden voyage from Rochforte bound for Yorktown, Virginia:



Isn't she magnificent!?! But she's just a 30 gun frigate, so not even a ship of the line. Just think what a sea-going replica, first rate, 3 decker, 100 gun, ship of the line - whether French or English - would look like!

Meles meles,

visited some years ago the building of the Hermione at Rochefort. Walking beneath the ship and looking upside, impressed by the hight of the ship...and yes what with  a 100 gunner...

Kind regards from a very busy Paul.

It was on the News on Saturday, a snip at £20 million.

£20 million for fake history. How many real historic vessels could that have saved?

Actually not very many ... the latest round of repairs for HMS Victory, started in 2011 and due to be completed in 2016, are expected to cost £16 million, and the contract looks to be extended for a further five years at a cost of an additional £25million, possibly even more if the funding is forthcoming.

Meanwhile the predicted cost of preserving and restoring the WW1 cruiser HMS Caroline is currently about £15million.

DNA and stable isotope analysis of fish bones in the wreck of the Mary Rose shows that the fish came from fisheries in the Northern North Sea & Iceland, some from of the coast of Newfoundland;
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150908210705.htm

Great research, isn't it, Trike? Proof of several things, including advanced urbanisation in Britain, even as early as 1545.

It is Nordmann, the use of the Newfoundland Fisheries at such an early date is quite surprising.

Within 10 years of John Cabot's original expedition the Newfoundland fisheries were already in full commercial swing - though those who had the tremendous courage (or desperation) to establish the grounds were mostly Breton, Portuguese and - most numerously - Normans. Thomas Aubert from Normandy was the guy who had followed Cabot's lead and then mapped the West Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland in 1508. By 1520 Norman ports were sending 90 vessels a season into the area, with the Portuguese and Bretons close behind in numbers.

Amazingly brave and resourceful people who must have been either incredibly naive or incredibly fatalistic - I am not sure any modern equivalent could be made for them (except maybe those currently labelled as "swarms" of refugees from Syria and the like).

Excellent information, Nords.

nordmann wrote:

Within 10 years of John Cabot's original expedition the Newfoundland fisheries were already in full commercial swing - though those who had the tremendous courage (or desperation) to establish the grounds were mostly Breton, Portuguese and - most numerously - Normans. Thomas Aubert from Normandy was the guy who had followed Cabot's lead and then mapped the West Atlantic fisheries off Newfoundland in 1508. By 1520 Norman ports were sending 90 vessels a season into the area, with the Portuguese and Bretons close behind in numbers.

The Galicians and the Basques also played a significant role in the development of the North Atlantic fisheries. A great book on this topic is Mark Kurlansky's Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World (1997).

I'll definitely check that one out, thanks.

What's amazing about these early ventures into the unknown is the number of Italians who accompanied many of these explorers, or provided ships and backing, or helped raise crews for them. And yet Italian companies - then probably the most complex and advanced in the world - never seemed to see the potential in investing in exploiting what they had helped so much to discover.

This is a pdf about the History of the Newfoundland Fisheries;

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/wildlife-nature/articles/pdfs/atlantic-cod-cabot-cod-and-the-colonists.pdf