Navy Clutter

Nice job putting Big Lizzie right in the middle of the pic!

Thank you. I thought it made a change from the usual pictures of QE. She may be big and modern but Victory still gets to be in front! Poor Victory has a bit of a waistline issue. She is sagging and bulging at the waist. Needs a massive load of work doing. A lot of weight has been taken out of her. All the canon are now fibreglass replicas and her topmasts have been taken down. Mind you, she will be 260 years old next year!!

Fiberglass! Oh, my.

I know! However, what is little known is that ships of this time did not have their own guns. When they entered port the guns would be offloaded at the "gunwharf" (Portsmouth has a shopping centre, formerly HMS Vernon called Gunwharf Quays). Then the ship would proceed into harbour. Likewise on the way out of port the guns would be loaded as so many 32 pounders, 24 pounders, 12 pounders etc. So she would never have sat in port fully laden, still less so in dry dock.

The modern equivalent of this is UHAF (upper harbour ammunitioning facility). Ships never come alongside fully armed -it's too dangerous.