Historic ships
The Society has always been concerned with the preservation of historic ships. Apart from playing a leading role in the saving of HMS Victory, the SNR has helped the following projects:
- excavation of a Punic ship at Marsala in Sicily
The ship went down in the middle of the 3rd century BC, at the time of the wars between the Romans and Carthaginians. It was almost new when it sank and has provided valuable evidence of naval architecture at the time. Read a description of the ship by the director of the excavation, Honor Frost. - recovery of Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose
Built between 1509 and 1511, the Mary Rose is the only 16th century warship on display anywhere in the world. After a long career in Henry's wars with France, she sank, apparently accidentally, during an engagement with the French fleet in the Solent in 1545. Her rediscovery and raising were seminal events in the history of nautical archaeology. Visit the Mary Rose website. - return of Brunel's SS Great Britain from the Falkland Islands to Bristol
In 1843, the SS Great Britain was the largest ship in the world and the first screw-propelled, ocean-going, wrought iron ship. She was used successively as a luxury passenger liner, an emigrant carrier, a troop ship and a coal hulk. She ran into trouble around Cape Horn and took shelter in the Falkland Islands, where she was eventually abandoned in the 1930s. Visit the SS Great Britain website. - preservation of the Cutty Sark
The Cutty Sark is the world’s sole surviving extreme clipper, the fastest ship of her time and one of the most beautiful. Launched in 1869, she was put into dry-dock at Greenwich in the 1950s and restored. Since then she has been visited by more than 15 million people. She is now undergoing further conservation work. See the Cutty Sark website. - rebuilding of the nineteenth-century frigate HMS Trincomalee
HMS Trincomalee was built in Bombay in 1816. After the Second World War, under the name Foudroyant she was used as a youth training ship. She is now restored and on display in Jackson Dock, Hartlepool, under her original name. She is the oldest floating British frigate and the second oldest floating ship in the world. Read more about her on the HMS Trincomalee website.
