A project has begun to preserve the 400-year-old Swedish warship Vasa, which notoriously sank on her maiden voyage. A new metal structure is being installed to support the hull of the ship, which has its own museum in Stockholm and…
A powerful iron-clad battleship, HMS Captain sank off Cape Finisterre in Spain in 1870.
The find has been hailed as the most significant British maritime discovery since the Mary Rose.
In its heyday, HMS Invincible was considered one of the finest ships in the Royal Navy – and although it sank off Portsmouth in 1758, its remains represent the best-preserved 18th-century warship known in UK waters. Carly Hilts spoke to Daniel Pascoe, who headed recent excavations of the wreck, and visited an exhibition currently running at The Historic Dockyard Chatham to find out more.
'This can be claimed as the single most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982.’
Almost four decades have elapsed since the Mary Rose was raised and an astonishing array of new research techniques have revolutionised our thinking about the ship’s make-up, her calamitous final moments, and perhaps most poignantly, the skeletal remains of her 500-strong crew.
Sometimes poor quality-control can be as lethal as bad design – this was certainly true in the case of HMS Glatton. On the outbreak of war in August 1914, the Admiralty began buying warships that British shipyards were building for…
Marc DeSantis delves into the history and meaning of the word 'kamikaze.'
Wood can be a difficult, and costly, archaeological material to preserve. This is nowhere better highlighted than by the enormous efforts put into place to help conserve the Mary Rose. When the remains of Henry VIII’s warship were lifted out…
Resting in the silty mud of the Thames Estuary, the London represents a remarkable time capsule of the Stuart era – but its remains are rapidly deteriorating. Geoff Downer describes an ambitious campaign to raise and preserve the wreck before it is lost to time and tide.
In 1995 the discovery of part of a Royal Navy warship hidden in the Wheelwrights’ Shop at The Historic Dockyard Chatham sparked a hunt to determine both the name of the vessel and what it was doing there. Now, this unique find has proven to be the final twist in the tale of an exceptional warship, as Alex Patterson explained to Matthew Symonds.
On the 11 October 1982 a pioneering campaign of underwater excavations culminated in the raising of Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose. That was only the beginning of a programme of research and conservation that continues to this day.