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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 5:52 pm
In honour of the brave men who fought, and their gallant ships and captains:
The fight song of the British Navy:
Hearts of Oak!
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer, To add something more to this wonderful year; To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves, For who are as free as the sons of the waves?
CHORUS Heart of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men, we always are ready; Steady, boys, steady! We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.
We ne'er see our foes but we wish them to stay, They never see us but they wish us away; If they run, why we follow, and run them ashore, And if they won't fight us, we cannot do more.
CHORUS...
They swear they'll invade us, these terrible foes, They frighten our women, our children and beaus, But should their flat bottoms in darkness get o'er, Still Britons they'll find to receive them on shore.
CHORUS...
Britannia triumphant, her ships sweep the sea, Her standard is Justice -- her watchword, 'be free.' Then cheer up, my lads, with one heart let us sing, Our soldiers, our sailors, our statesmen, and king.
CHORUS...
------------ May we never forget! Huzzah!!!
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:55 am
Hooray! Long live HMS Victory and the memory of Nelson and all who served under him.
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:47 pm
Amen to that! It was an astonishing battle--the strategies involved just boggle my mind. I know from war games how hard it is to direct ground troops when one has contact with them by radio--just the thought of orchestrating a battle at sea, with no means save signal flags, utterly stuns me.
It takes a special genius to pull off such a thing, that's for certain!
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:36 am
I second that.
I have a reverent respect for Nelson, although he was a bit naughty when he decided to have an affair. confused
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 10:25 am
*smiles* Boys will be boys....
Don't let that diminish him for you in any way. He was still a great man... and sometimes the love of one's life shows up AFTER the wedding to someone else. Believe me....
A truly amazing man, Lord Nelson.
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 3:01 pm
Oh I never said it diminished my respect for him. I just think *tut* "naughty naughty, don't do it again" like a school teacher. It's nothing more than that. Heck, I wish my dad would go routing around the archives at the local county hall and delve into genealogy. He said he was going to. I would, but I have so many other things to contend with. I would so love to discover that I'm related to him in some way or to someone who knew him and/or worked with him.
I am now going to be supporting two tall ship support groups as well as having a paid job (when I can find one), along with writing my book.
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Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2007 8:05 pm
I'm betting someone's done a lot of the digging already. Try googling "descendants of Lord Nelson" or "ancestry of..." there was a lot of this going on in the Victorian era, and I'm sure it's online somewhere. These days darned near everything is. smile Then you only need look for a common ancestor or relative.
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Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 9:26 am
Stop encouraging me! I have lots to do as it is! Nyaargh! I want to find out now dammit! gonk
Ohhh, if only....I so want to get back down to Portsmouth.
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Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 4:07 pm
I completely understand this compulsion. There never seem to be enough hours in a day. smile
See my new post in the Tall Ships discussion; Sotheby's has some Trafalgar paintings on auction.
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Posted: Sat Oct 27, 2007 9:00 am
Yeah I saw. I'll have a look when I can.
Me and my friends are still heading to Portsmouth just after the new year, so I'll be going to see Victory again soon anyway. I'm heading to Southampton on the 7th November to sail on board the LORD NELSON (I mention it in my new post in the tall ships thread also) - aptly named.
It's a real pain because I will be so close to Portsmouth I'll be frantic. LET ME SEE HER!
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:17 am
I had an interesting thought.
There's not many places online where one can log on and look at things like ships, castles, etc.--what if you were able at some point to borrow or hire a digital video recorder? You could go tour the ship, try to maybe go on a day or at an hour when there are fewer people around; stand in the middle of each accessible section of the ship and slowly turn, filming the whole chamber, then take a second go and hone in on specific neat things that catch your eye. Then make a DVD and interface with the people running the museum, to ask if you can maybe get some close-ups or get access to other parts of the ship... then put up a web site? It could be a virtual tour of Victory! That would be SO cool. They do it in house ads on the internet all the time, but this would be neat. smile What do you think?
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:05 pm
Well, to be honest I'd rather people go and visit her than taking to a virtual tour. The long term preservation requires money and that's the main reason why the dockyard tickets are more expensive. They're £16.30 I think and that's about $30-32 I think...?
I'll probably do something like that, but doing it as a tour really would take a lot out of it really. I'm not sure.
I'm contemplating seeing if I can get down there at the end of this month to help out with the Victorian Festival of Christmas down there. That is, if Victory's education officer would like me to do it. She's already said I'd be welcome to help as a volunteer and shadow tour guides and such depending on whether there's anything I can do. It depends entirely on money. I could possibly scrape the train fare there and back, but not accommodation really. I'll have to wait and see what she says.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 1:05 pm
HMS-Victory.com RiggingHMS Victory has approximately 26 miles (42km) of hemp rope that makes up her rigging. Although the ropes were made in Britain, most of the raw hemp from which the ropes were made came from the Baltic. Victory's rigging can be split into 2 types, each with it's own specific job. These are: standing rigging and running rigging. Standing rigging: As the name implies the standing rigging does not move. Its main purpose was to support the masts and bowsprit, helping to prevent them from falling over. Because these ropes don't move they were coated with tar to make them last longer. Standing rigging came in 2 basic types: the shrouds and the stays. The stays helped to prevent the masts from falling forwards or backwards. The shrouds were used to stop the mast from falling sideways. Running rigging: The running rigging was used to hoist, adjust and control the yards and sails. For ease of use most of the rope led down to the upper decks where they were easily accessible. Unlike the standing rigging these ropes were in constant use and needed to be flexible. As such they were not coated in tar and would be regularly replaced. Due to the large number of ropes each man, or group of men, was allocated a specific rope to work. This helped to avoid confusion and made the sailors' task easier to complete. The layout of the rigging was also designed to help efficiency and avoid accidents. This meant that men or groups working ropes would not get in each others way. To secure the ropes at deck level they were either tied round timberheads and kevels or secured using removable belaying pins. Blocks: Approx. 768 pulley blocks were used to operate Victory's running rigging. The smallest of these is 6 inches (15 cm) long, the largest is 26 inches (66 cm) long. Blocks were also used to lower and raise the ship's boats and anchors and for the loading and unloading of stores and provisions. There were 628 blocks used to work the great guns as well as a supply of spares. The Prince William has 19 miles of rigging and that's a 60 metre (196.85 ft) brig. Victory is a ship of the line, and is 69 metres (226ft). 19 miles is a long way. That's 2/3 of the way from my house to Great Yarmouth, 26 miles is pretty much almost all the way to Great Yarmouth from my house. That's a heck of a lot of rope.
That's awe-inspiring itself let alone the rest of that majestic wonder.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:30 am
Hmm, serendipitously this partly answers my question in the tall ships thread! smile Thanks!
Being a tour guide, esp. in costume, would be so cool. I've done house-museum work like that, and just loved it!
The virtual tour would be for the rest of us who can't always get there... smile
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 10:09 am
Yeah I suppose. I'll see what I can do some day. With regards to the other thread, it really is only a very small part of the reality of these things. I'll get around to answering many more questions when I return from this next voyage.
Put all questions and info about Victory in here from now on though. This thread IS about her after all. smile
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