This 260-Year-Old Warship Is Still Active
HMS Victory was launched in 1765. She is 260 years old. She still flies the White Ensign of the Royal Navy.
She is still in commission — still formally a ship of His Majesty's Navy. Admiral Horatio
Nelson was killed aboard her at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, defeating the combined
fleets of Napoleon's France and Spain and ensuring British naval supremacy for over a century.
His body was preserved in a barrel of brandy for the voyage home. The spot on her deck where he fell is still marked.
She sits in dry dock at Portsmouth. Visitors touch the same wood. The same ropes.
The same cannon. She is 260 years old. She still has a captain. She still has a crew. She is still, technically, at sea.
She is still in commission — still formally a ship of His Majesty's Navy. Admiral Horatio
Nelson was killed aboard her at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, defeating the combined
fleets of Napoleon's France and Spain and ensuring British naval supremacy for over a century.
His body was preserved in a barrel of brandy for the voyage home. The spot on her deck where he fell is still marked.
She sits in dry dock at Portsmouth. Visitors touch the same wood. The same ropes.
The same cannon. She is 260 years old. She still has a captain. She still has a crew. She is still, technically, at sea.
