Falklands veteran scrapped.

I agree, It’s very much like, (Many years ago) when a case of restoration went as high as it could go in a Civvi Court, inasmuch as a very rare, and expensive car had been restored, but from only the bare minimum of original parts, the Judge, had to decide, just what percentage of the original car was used in the restoration, as to be classed as “The original”.
In keeping with that, the same can be said for much of the woodwork of HMS Victory, as nearly all the original wood has been replaced. The time I went on her, they were caulking, “The Devils Line” and for some reason or tother, I was told not to photograph this particular operation, but was never told why not.
Navy superstition?.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Course you are right Jim. How do you make something like that interesting for today’s generation of kids? Not easy to do it whilst preserving the remains. Victory is easy to relate to because you are walking through it and you can begin to imagine what it was like but it has very much been mucked about with.

Like I said, seen one seen ’em all.

One pile of water-sodden timber, some cattle bones, a few believers and Robert is the sibling of one one of your parents whilst you set up your own museum…

Think you’d be hard pushed to find a more historically significant ship to preserve though Jim-even if it doesn’t look that exciting.

I know what you mean Der, however, if you took a bus load of kids there, I doubt if many would be interested in a “Heap of wooden beams” as opposed to a trip of, say, HMS Victory, where they could get a guided tour, and at least get an idea of what a First Rate Ship Of The Line would have looked like.
With the Mary Rose, it would mean a lesson in the historical fact of how the ship capsized and went down. Don’t forget, that many schools nowadays, have confined History, to the History books.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

That’s getting a little bit personal, Linc-y!

It’s just a little “Thing” between Tony and I. If he had taken it the wrong way, believe me, he would have said so by now..:p

Jim.
Lincoln .7

Think you’d be hard pushed to find a more historically significant ship to preserve though Jim-even if it doesn’t look that exciting.

That’s getting a little bit personal, Linc-y!

Just try and keep up ole chap………:D
Jim.
Lincoln .7

Ha, I was altering my reply when you posted.

What about the Mary Rose?, I watched the salving of that, right from the start. I was taking an exam, at the exact time she broke surface, and got permission to leave the exam room to see her. It must have cost zillions to get her up, and she is still undergoing preservation. When I went to visit the display, all you could see then, was a lot of water being sprayed onto the remaining wood. I think that the money spent, could have helped to preserve a far better ship. The Yanks, on the other hand are great at keeping alive many aircraft, ships etc, we on the other hand tend to scrap anything past it’s sell by date.
Many years ago, I visited ABP at Hull, to seek out any discarded Lighthouse artifacts, Long story short, was that they had a Lighthouse prism, of the 1st order, (The largest) worth 5 million quid, which they had been looking after for a company, the records of which had been lost, as ABP were moving into smaller premises, there was no room for the Prism, and as such, the prism was smashed up, and put into a skip, and dumped into a landfill site.I can’t think of any other Country anywhere that this would have been allowed to happen.
Jim.
Lincoln .7

The Canberra was a ship that inspired me, it had that futuristic look with its twin funnels and was ahead of its time when most vehicles were pure drab looking… As a little snapper it was the one model ship I wanted to build and saved my pocket money to buy the Airfix? kit.

I totally agree about the chopping up of the U-boat, the Americans had the right idea where they moved and sank theirs underground into a specially built underground museum.
One of the most disappointing ships I went to see was the Mary Rose, the most I got to see of the ship was leaving in the lift… Hopefully when the drying process is finished they will open up the access to it more, not to touch it, simply to actually see it.

Fighting Temeraire ,another piece of history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Temeraire_(1798) .It has been going on for years.

???
A great painting, one of my favourites, but it was broken up in 1838.

You aren’t getting confused with the shore based Directorate of Naval Physical Training and Sport, HMS Temeraire, in Portsmouth since 1971, are you?

SS Shieldhall?
She was built in 1954-55 as a replacement for a vessel sunk in WWII, and was a ‘sludge’ carrier, taking sewage from Glasgow to be dumped at sea. It looked evocative – a design that appear positively 1930’s. And she is in fully working condition, despite the modest income cruising the Solent generates. There is very little to compare with it, on this side of the Atlantic anyway.

Fighting Temeraire ,another piece of history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Temeraire_(1798) .It has been going on for years.

While I can understand preserving a warship as a museum (guns, small boys etc), I can’t understand why anyone would want to preserve or visit an old cargo ship?
It’s a large, very large and expensive, booring, hunk of metal.
It wouldn’t be able to pay it’s way.

We don’t have a great reputation preserving larger vessels – look at HMS Plymouth or SS Shieldhall and the difficulties they have with maintaining themselves. Even when it is relatively unique we do silly things like cutting a salvaged U-Boat (U-534) into five pieces to help ‘preserve’ it.
There have been a large batch of vessels preserved in the UK in the last 20-30 years, and most of them will end up as that flakey red rusty stuff unless they are sold for scrap first. There is only so much that be preserved – the public doesn’t have so much interest in stuff so if they see one ship they believe they’ve seen them all; is there really that much demand?
HMS Victory is a replica, to all intents and purposes; HMS M33, HMS Trincomalee, HMS Gannet and HMS Warrior have all been extensively renovated since they were hulks, HMS Unicorn is a hulk and will never be anything else (staying preserved in ‘ordinary’, or so they say…). HMS Caroline (last survivor of the Battle of Jutland) is a hulk but there are proposals to renovate her. HMS Cavalier has been in and out of trouble ever since she was ‘preserved’ in 1977 (my brother spent several years chipping away at the rust in Southampton and Brighton: there is a reason a vessel gets to the end of its service life), HMY Britannia and HMS Bronington have both had their problems in preservation due to not being able to throw money at them like the navy did.
Others are in ‘official’ museum collections (ie HMS Belfast, HMS Alliance, HM submarine Torpedo Boat No 1 – or Holland 1, etc), which makes it a little easier to preserve them.

Who can forget the return of the Canberra from the Falklands ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0MBNZhtV9E

There is a campaign going at the moment to try and save HMS Edinburgh for the city she is named after, to be berthed alongside Brittannia. Not a Falklands veteran of course but it would be nice to see one type 42 preserved and accessible to the public.

I’ve been on a few 42’s: Sheffield, Coventry & Manchester.

How about her involvement in the naming of HMS Tiger Bay, the captured Argentine Coastguard patrol boat formerly known as – somewhat ironically – Islas Malvinas?