The battleship HMS Victoria,sunk in Lebanon,the pictures

HMS Victoria, Memorial
Posted by James Goring on 2/3/2009, 3:44 pm, in reply to "Re: HMS Camperdown"

This is a Memorial to the crew killed in the disaster, in Victoria Park Portsmouth, it was
originally erected in the towns main square but at the request of survivers was moved to the park
in 1903 were it would be better protected. an
actual photo of the moment HMS Victoria took her
death plunge exists.




An artists impression of the ship size against Nelsons Column.


Crewmen and sailors jump over the side as the ship starts to sink,it sank very quickly.

THE wreck of HMS Victoria, once the flagship of the Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, has been discovered off the coast of Lebanon, 111 years after being rammed by another British warship during manoeuvres and sinking with the loss of 358 lives.
The disaster was the largest peacetime loss of life in the history of the Royal Navy.

And in an extraordinary fluke, the wreck, lying in more than 350 ft of water off the coast of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, is in a vertical position, with about a quarter of her length buried in the sea floor. It is thought to be the only known shipwreck in the world in a 90-degree position.

HMS Victoria was discovered last week by Christian Francis, a Lebanese-Austrian diver who has been searching for the wreck since 1994 and teamed up with Mark Ellyatt, a British deep-diving champion, in March.

They found the ship’s general location with the help of fishermen’s tales about an area off the coast rich in fish, indicating the possibility of a wreck. On August 22, Mr Francis and Mr Ellyat explored the spot, following a rope toward the sea floor.

“I saw a huge shadow off to the left between us and the setting sun,” Mr Francis told The Times. “We couldn’t imagine what it was and swam over to see.” To their astonishment, the two divers discovered HMS Victoria resting in her vertical position. “We are both experienced divers, but we were completely and totally speechless and amazed at what we saw,” he said.


HMS Victoria was considered, in her day, one of the most successful designs of Barnaby's tenure as Director of Naval Construction (DNC). The derivation of her design is from Hero, Conqueror and other harbor-defense ironclads of the 1870s and 80s: the theory was that the ship would only be attacking as a ram, using her guns for forward fire as she swooped in on her prey, so no guns were provided facing astern. This design had three drawbacks. One, that the vessel was not a full fighting ship without guns all round; two, that the concentrated armament could all be knocked out by a single hit; and three, that no major fighting ship won a battle by ramming after 1879: gunnery, not collision tactics, was the deadliest weapon (though torpedo and mine came close behind).

Destined to be the flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Victoria was a very low-freeboard vessel with her single turret of 16.25" guns -- the largest in the British fleet at the time -- sited forward, almost amidships as measured fore and aft, and 5 feet lower to the sea's surface than in Collingwood. A sole 10" gun was added almost as an afterthought to cover the ship's rear. The barrel is visible in the illustration at top, pointing aft above the aftermost (swung out) small boat. The main guns were in a robustly armored turret, but the 10-incher had only a thin splinter shield to protect the crew: protection of very dubious value in combat. Victoria and her sister ship, Sans Pareil (shown at left ready for launch), carried a 16-18" Harvey armor belt, with 17" armor plate on the turret. They were the first British battleships to rely on triple expansion engines. Side-by-side inverted vertical engines shafted to twin 2-bladed screws gave them a speed of 16 knots, with ~17 knots attained on trials under forced draft.


The wreck of the Victoria as she stands (literaly) today,amazing!




This was an accident that killed hundreds of men,rammed by another british warship,it should just never of happened,I think I read that the front guns and turrets weighed a massive 110 tons,it was that weight that took her down as fast as she did.


Amazingly, the wreck of the Victoria was discovered in 2004 in the waters off Tripoli. 111 years after the sinking, the aftermost third of the hull projects vertically over the sea bed, with the intact propellers and 10" gun still pointing skywards. Apparently the great weight of the 16" turret pulled her down like a stone, and her ram bow buried itself in the muddy bottom. This lethal leviathan and its dead thus were fused inseparably with the watery portion of the earth: full fathom five.