HMS Invincible to be Scrapped in Turkey

As someone recently said…

Who’d have thought 30 years ago Hermes would still be in active service when Invincible was at the breakers yard?

The Invincible class was built to replace Hermes (and Bulwark, and Ark Royal… but those two were already decommissioned)… ironic, isn’t it?

Yea Tea Clippers ( I must keep up ) I always thought the Navy ran on Rum, Bum & Baccy??

Most of Britain’s preserved heritage isn’t a ‘viable business proposition’.

HMS Invincible £2million, Brueghel painting (one of thousands owned by the government) £2.7million!

Running costs. Check what it’d cost per year to keep a CVS intact, & safe enough to let the public roam around.

It all comes down to money,

How much will it cost to preserve?

How many people will visit it every year?

Is there a margin for profit?

I read somewhere a few years back that HMS Belfast costs £5000 a week to preserve and operate and has not broken even in 10 years and she is in about the primest tourist spot in the country and struggles to make the gate.

The good thing is she has a war history and is under the nations care where preserving a carrier like the HMS Ark Royal would not be unfortunately plus HMS Ark Royal does not have the battle honors of HMS Invincible and she is being turned into girders in Turkey.

curlyboy

Preserving an aircraft carrier would have never been a viable business proposition.

Museums and preservation are not ‘viable business propositions’. They are not businesses but social capital.

While any major organisation needs a financial plan that is viable (often – and erroneously in these cases – known as a ‘business plan’) we must not fall into the trap at any level of thinking everything can be measured mainly or only in cash.

A viable scenario could be made to have preserved an aircraft carrier in the UK. The major obstacles are the modern disinterest in such major military hardware for preservation (pre- 1950 attitudes and personal connections to the RN were much more favourable and personal) and financial stringency coupled with an inability to learn from foreign precedents (detailed below) or getting the snowball effect which worked for the SS Great Britain in the 1970s and since.

(Having recently had tours in California of the USS Hornet and the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, there are precedents and models for such levels of preservation to work in the UK. The differences are huge, of course, but I suspect with will, each major negative difference could be cancelled by a positive difference. – “… great things are not done by those who sit down and count the cost of every thought and act.”
Daniel Gooch on IK Brunel, two great Britons who knew how to achieve big, metal, dreams.)

Regards,

Actually (after taking my head out of my ****) it seems that the National Heritage Memorial Fund has been quite active in preserving British warships!

http://search.hlf.org.uk/NHMFWeb/SearchDatabase/Searchresults.htm?searchbox=HMS

So I wonder if saving HMS Ark Royal (which is up for sale) has any chance?

Preserving an aircraft carrier would have never been a viable business proposition…

Most of Britain’s preserved heritage isn’t a ‘viable business proposition’.

HMS Invincible £2million, Brueghel painting (one of thousands owned by the government) £2.7million!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-12126503

“Individual giving combined with ongoing support from government funds such as the National Heritage Memorial Fund will play an increasingly important role in securing our most precious heritage.”

The fund’s money comes from the Treasury and is intended to be the last resort for saving items of importance to the UK’s national heritage.

It has received £10m a year since 2007, but its grant will be halved from this year as a result of government cuts.

Those wishing to preserve a warship…..need not apply! 😡

It always comes down to money – the highest bidder will rarely be someone who wants to preserve something. There is more profit in scrapping and recycling. Sad, but true.

Preserving an aircraft carrier would have never been a viable business proposition.

I’m amazed the Concordes made it into preservation. Certainly a well thought out policy for the benefit of the preservation movement, but how much would it have netted BA and AF if the fleet was sold for scrap?

The space shuttles were never offered for scrap, but the museums still had to pay $28million each.

Preservation is an important thing. Feasability is another.

Sad to see, in the light of today’s views on conservation, but back then
nobody seems to have worried.

Todays views on conservation? In light of the current pics of Invincible being scrapped and the possibilty of Ark royal going the same way, are things that different now?

Pathe newsreel of the Implacable’s demise. Painful:

http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=27323

Sad to see, in the light of today’s views on conservation, but back then
nobody seems to have worried.
It would have cost a fortune even in those days, to conserve, and by now
would have probably been scrapped anyway.

The timber would now would be worth a fortune. Assuming most of it was
oak

Thanks, CD, but do you know I really don’t want to look.:( Silly, isn’t it? But I just find the whole business very sad, very shortsighted and very stupid.

Some photographs of HMS Invincible being scrapped…..it’s enough to make you weep! 😡

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13778654

http://andfinally.tv/2011/06/hms-invincible-is-scrapped/

I thought the RN ran on tea…:diablo:

Rum, the lash and sodomy according to Churchill

Thank You British Govt. for once again making Brits ashamed to be Brits. and i thought American politicians were asses,,,,

HMS Invincible is on her way to the scrapyard:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-12845457

And it looks like HMS Ark Royal will follow her (unless her name saves her):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12883511

Interestingly in the first BBC article there is a quote from Sir Jeremy Black who commanded HMS Invincible during the Falklands saying that his most enduring memory of his time aboard was being ‘scared rigid’ when a torpedo was fired at the ship:

“They fired it incorrectly and it wouldn’t have hit us, thank God, because that would have spoilt my day. In fact, it would have ruined the campaign!”

As far as I know no Argentine submarine, ship or aircraft ever got close enough to HMS Invincible to fire a torpedo at her, so what torpedo attack is he talking about?

Am I missing something…

Yes, because I was using ‘battleship’ to describe a particular type of warship; HMS Belfast (for example) is a warship, she is also a cruiser but she is not a battleship.

It is a good list though and does make one appreciate what has been preserved. 🙂

I thought the RN ran on tea…:diablo:

No that’s the British Army… 😀

Cheers,
Richard

PS. I know that from personal experience!

Since when was a tea clipper a battleship?
Let alone RN
Richard

I thought the RN ran on tea…:diablo:

Am I missing something, what are these if they are not preserved RN Battleships ???

ENGLAND
{snip}
Cutty Sark, Greenwhich
{snip}

Since when was a tea clipper a battleship?

Let alone RN

Richard