NELSON’S FAMOUS FLAGSHIP

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1928, Page 1

NELSON’S FAMOUS FLAGSHIP

THE VICTORY’S LAST HOME. LONDON, June 28. Almost' everything in the great work of repair of Nelson’s flagship 11.M.5. Victory has been completed. Shipshape in black and red paint, with all her forest of ropes trim and taut, she stands in Portsmouth dockyard propped on iron cradles in a dry berth. Slid will never float again. As she lies now in her permanent cradle tlie graceful lines of her keel, all slieated in copper, may be seen, and her bowsprit—although she is a dwarf among the steel giants that float a few yards away—towers high over tho ioof of the admiral superintendent’s office. .Nelson's own quarters are completed, and his stateroom has been panelled. Devils famous arid historically correct picture of the admiral’s death is now placed in the cockpit on the lower gun deck, as near as it is possible to tell to the spot where Nelson died. , . : The. whole work of restoration has been directed to the saving of this great relie, and in refitting the .Society for Nautical Research has gone to considerable pains to ensure that the Victory shall appear just as she did in Nelson’s day. To reproduce the exact Victory on which Nelson died has meant an enorjiioiis for the society. The fact .that they have succeeded so well is. largely clue, to the work of Professor Geoffrey Callender, the feiiovation cost approaching £1(10,000. _ .... Twenty seaineri and twenty marines live aboard her, and these fine days many of them sling their hammocks from the old beams of her upper gun deck. The, Prince, of Wales roll go aboard to-day, arid on July 17 the King will unveil a commemorative tablet on her upper guh deck.