A real ship's log sells for £40,000

As I was looking for examples of Copperplate handwriting for my recent post about handwriting, I came across this beautiful, striking image of a ship’s log and this article: Bounty logbook sells for £40,000.

A naval logbook detailing the first glimpse of the Bounty mutineers on a remote Pacific island sold for £40,000 at auction.

(…)

The weighty, yellowing tome, painstakingly inscribed by midshipman J.B. Hoodthorp of the HMS Briton, also contains a watercolour sketch of Pitcairn Island.

Painstakingly inscribed. And illustrated too. Now tell me that log book is not a work of art as well as a piece of history. Is there such a thing as ‘painstakingly inscribed’ nowadays?

Hoodthorp, a junior officer, probably aged no more than 18, was responsible for compiling a daily account of the 44-gun ship's course and sailing conditions.

On Saturday September 17 1814, his curling script recorded: "Several canoes came onboard.

"Found the island inhabited by the descendants of Mr F Christian. Mutinous crew of the Bounty settled here AD 1788 (sic)."

(…)

Royal Navy warships spent 25 years scouring the ocean for any trace of the mutineers who set captain William Bligh adrift in an open boat after seizing control of HMS Bounty in 1789.

Led by Fletcher Christian they took refuge on Pitcairn Island, 1350 miles off the coast of Tahiti, and established a thriving community in 1790.

This is interesting enough, and then we read:

The HMS Briton, a fifth rate frigate commanded by Sir Thomas Stanley, was in the South Pacific to intercept an American frigate, the USS Essex, which had been attacking the British whaling fleet.

En route to Pitcairn the Briton also stopped in Peru and the Galapagos Islands.

Does that remind you of a Patrick O’Brian book and movie?

The Importance of Good Handwriting

When I was at school in England, a long, long time ago, they taught us to write a modified form of Copperplate script. I didn’t know it was Copperplate at the time; it was simply ‘handwriting’ to me. The following image of a Copperplate script is not exactly what we wrote but not far from it neither.

This went on till I was about nine or ten. Then one day I noticed the handwriting of the boy next to me. He was, I remember, some fugitive latecomer from another school or town. He certainly did not learn how to write at my school. What was this writing? My eyes could hardly believe. No loops, no curls, no flourishes at all: capitals simplified to the extreme, as found in the newspaper, every letter reduced to its simplest expression. Here was the future! Here was progress! It was modern, efficient, avant-garde and a few other adjectives I did not know yet. It was simply ‘cool’. I adopted this knew way of handwriting in an instant. There was nothing to practice: just eliminate all this useless decoration. To give credit to my teachers, not a one made any comment to me that my handwriting had ‘changed’. Individuality was respected.

Fast forward a life time. A new respect for the old ways is quietly born of countless hours reading philosophy and history and realizing how shitty are the new ways. Comments about messages written in ‘a fine Copperplate hand’ keep cropping up in my beloved Patrick O’Brian historical novels. I begin to look at my own handwriting again. Sadly, it has not evolved since that day when I was 9 years old. What seemed to me then to be an excellent handwriting script, now appears to be lazy, superficial, without character. Strange how perceptions change so quickly, innit?

So I am here to tell you that I am absolutely relearning how to write in Copperplate script, just like they taught me at school a long, long time ago. Perhaps not entirely like. But not far from it neither.

Image 1 from scribblers

Image 2 from Wikipedia:  Detail of the log of HMS Victory kept by William Farquhar, 1854-55

Henryk Sienkiewicz - in the midst of darkness, humour

As you may know, I have been revelling in my recent discovery of the second greatest historical novelist of all time , Henryk Sienkiewicz. He has many of the qualities I admire in my favourite author Patrick O’Brian: an easy, unforced poetic style, historical accuracy that is detailed without being tedious, deftly drawn characters that power a fast-paced story set in a backdrop of events bigger than themselves, and action that does not try to reinvent the wheel but imaginatively places us in the minds of the protagonists. But as I read, I began to feel that there was one thing missing: that warm, friendly humour - never cutting or cynical - that O’Brian uses to illustrate the goodness of his characters as their humanity places them between a rock and a hard place. I missed that humour in the first pages, but I didn’t miss it for long because the following passage had me in tears and is worthy of the best of O’Brian.

Let us set the stage so you can ‘get it’. We have our young, stubborn, brave and upright knightly hero, Zbyszko. We have his old uncle, Macko, the last lord of his great family who has no sons to carry on the family name. That name hangs by a thread in the form of his nephew Zbyszko who could be killed in the war at any moment thus snuffing out the great lineage of the Gradys in an instant. He therefore lives to see Zbyszko married so he can produce heirs. There exists the perfect match for Zbyszko in a local girl, Jagienka, a childhood sweetheart, a beautiful, brave and resourceful girl with a good dowry of neighbouring lands and who loves Zbyszko. And we have the abbot, a very powerful and masterful man, who loves Jagienka like a father and shares Macko’s earnest desire to see her married to his nephew. The only problem to this match made in heaven is that Zbyszko has sworn a knightly vow to serve and marry another girl called Danusia. The abbot knows of this and has taunted and manipulated Zbyszko (he thinks) into challenging and fighting two local suitors of Jagienka, Cztan and Wilk.

Macko and Zbyszko are with the abbot, who is speaking of the merits of Jagienka:

"The girl is perfectly right to be particular in her choice, because she is pretty, rich and of good family! Of what account are Cztan or Wilk, when the son of a ‘wojewoda’ (a prince or duke) would not be too good for her! But if somebody, as myself for instance, spoke in favor of any particular one, then she would marry him, because she loves me and knows that I will advise her well."

"The one whom you advise her to marry, will be very lucky," said Macko.

But the abbot turned to Zbyszko:

"What do you say to this?"

"Well, I think the same as my uncle does."

The face of the abbot became still more serene; he struck Zbyszko's shoulder with his hand so hard that the blow resounded in the chamber, and asked:

"Why did you not let Cztan or Wilk approach Jagienka at church?"

"Because I did not want them to think that I was afraid of them, and I did not want you to think so."

"But you gave the holy water to her."

"Yes, I did."

The abbot gave him another blow.

"Then, take her!"

"Take her!" exclaimed Macko, like an echo.

At this Zbyszko gathered up his hair, put it in the net, and answered quietly:

"How can I take her, when before the altar in Tyniec, I made a vow to Danusia Jurandowna?"

"You made a vow about the peacock's tufts, and you must get them, but take Jagienka immediately."

"No," answered Zbyszko; "afterward when Danusia covered me with her veil, I promised that I would marry her."

The blood began to rush to the abbot's face; his ears turned blue, and his eyes bulged; he approached Zbyszko and said, in a voice muffled with anger:

"Your vows are the chaff and I am the wind; understand! Ot!"

And he blew on Zbyszko's head so powerfully, that the net fell off and the hair was scattered on his shoulders. Then Zbyszko frowned, and looking into the abbot's eyes, he said:

"In my vows is my honor, and over my honor, I alone am the guardian!"

At this, the abbot not being accustomed to opposition, lost his breath to such a degree, that for a time he could not speak. There was an ill-omened silence, which finally was broken by Macko:

"Zbyszku!" exclaimed he, "come to your wits again! What is the matter with you?"

Meanwhile the abbot raised his hand and pointing toward the youth, began to shout:

"What is the matter with him? I know what is the matter; he has not the heart of a nobleman, nor of a knight, but of a hare! That is the matter with him; he is afraid of Cztan and Wilk!"

But Zbyszko, who had remained cool and calm, carelessly shrugged his shoulders and answered:

"Owa! I broke their heads when I was in Krzesnia."

"For heaven's sake!" exclaimed Macko.

The abbot stared for a while at Zbyszko. Anger was struggling with admiration in him, and his reason told him that from that fight, he might derive some benefit for his plans.

Therefore having become cooler, he shouted to Zbyszko:

"Why didn't you tell us that before?"

"Because I was ashamed. I thought they would challenge me, as it is customary for knights to do, to fight on horseback or on foot; but they are bandits, not knights. Wilk first took a board from the table, Cztan seized another and they both rushed against me! What could I do? I seized a bench; well--you know!"

"Are they still alive?" asked Macko.

"Yes, they are alive, but they were hurt. They breathed when I left."

The abbot, rubbing his forehead, listened; then he suddenly jumped from the chest, on which he had seated himself to be more comfortable and to think the matter over, and exclaimed:

"Wait! I want to tell you something!"

"What?" asked Zbyszko.

"If you fought for Jagienka and injured them for her sake, then you are really her knight, not Danusia's; and you must take Jagienka."

Having said this, he put his hands on his hips and looked at Zbyszko triumphantly; but Zbyszko smiled and said:

"Hej! I knew very well why you wanted me to fight with them; but you have not succeeded in your plans."

"Why? Speak!"

"Because I challenged them to deny that Danusia Jurandowna is the prettiest and the most virtuous girl in the world; they took Jagienka's part, and that is why there was a fight."

Having heard this, the abbot stood amazed, and only the frequent movement of his eyes indicated that he was still alive. Finally he turned, opened the door with his foot, and rushed into the other room; there he seized the curved stick from the pilgrim's hands and began to strike the ‘shpilmen’ with it, roaring like a wounded urus.

"To horse, you rascals! To horse, you dog-faiths! I will not put my foot in this house again! To horse, he who believes in God, to horse!"

Then he opened the outer door and went into the court-yard, followed by the frightened seminarists. They rushed to the stable and began to saddle the horses. In vain Macko followed the abbot, and entreated him to remain; swore that it was not his fault. The abbot cursed the house, the people and the fields; when they brought him a horse, he jumped in the saddle without touching the stirrups and galloped away looking, with his large sleeves filled by the wind, like an enormous red bird. The seminarists rushed after him, like a herd following its leader.

Macko stood looking after them for some time; but when they disappeared in the forest, he returned slowly to the room and said to Zbyszko, shaking his head sadly:

"See what you have done?"

Henryk Sienkiewicz - the original master of the medieval epic

When I decided to look into Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novels, I first tried to find him at Chapters Bookstore. He was not to be found, not even his Quo Vadis. You will find any number of new authors’ books about the same period and even the same subject but none by the original master of the genre. I suppose I cannot try to wax too indignant because I only just discovered him myself.

I remember buying one or two of those new authors in the past and how disappointing they were, even before I had Sienkiewicz to compare them with. I remember one awful novel where the author expected us to admire and identify with the knightly hero by telling us he had won a fine horse by staying up all night playing dice. I stopped reading at that point.

In Sienkiewicz, as in O’Brian, or Tolkien, there is no striving, no striving at all. The author’s style is unobtrusive. His techniques are seamless. We forget about the narrator completely. We live in the emotions of the protagonists. We escape to another world. That’s ‘all’ there is to it. How easily it seems to be done! But how hard is to do well!

In my last post we had a look at an example of Sienkiewicz’s poetic style in Knights of the Cross. Now I will share with you an example of his action. I have condensed it down a little. God forgive me, because you should not edit such a masterpiece.

The scene:  Zbyszko, our hero, has taken up the Teutonic knight Rotgier’s general challenge to a duel to prove before God the Teutonic Order’s innocence in the affair of the abduction of Zbyszko’s young wife. Zbyszko believes the knight is lying and that the Order is in fact responsible for the abduction.

The fight was to take place in the castle yard, which was surrounded by a porch. When it was broad daylight, the prince and princess arrived together with their children and took their seats in the centre between the pillars, from where the whole yard could best be overlooked. Next to them were the principal courtiers, noble ladies, and the knighthood. All the corners of the vestibule were filled: the domestics gathered behind the wall which was made from the swept snow, some clung to the posts, and even to the roof. There the vulgar muttered among themselves: "God grant that our champion may not be subdued!"

(…)

They entered from opposite sides of the arena and halted at the barriers. Every one of the onlookers then held his breath, every one thought, that very soon two souls would escape to the threshold of the Divine Court and two dead bodies remain on the snow, and the lips, as well as the cheeks of the women turned pale and livid at that thought; the eyes of the men again gazed steadfastly at the opponents as at a rainbow, because every one was trying to forecast, from their postures and armament alone, which side would be victorious.

(…)

It was in some measure favorable for Zbyszko that he had chosen a combat with axes, because fencing with that kind of weapon was impossible. With long and short swords, with which it was necessary to know the strokes, thrusts, and how to ward off blows, the German would have had a considerable superiority. But even so, Zbyszko, as well as the spectators, recognized from his motions and management of the shield, that they had before them an experienced and formidable man, who apparently was not entering a combat of this kind for the first time. To each of Zbyszko's blows Rotgier offered his shield, slightly withdrawing it at the concussion, by which means even the most powerful swing lost its force, and could neither cleave nor crush the smooth surface. He at times retreated and at times became aggressive, doing it quietly, though so quickly that the eyes could hardly follow his motions.

(…)

Rotgier, who had fought in many wars and battles, either in troop or singly, knew by experience that there are some people, like birds of prey, who are born to fight, being specially gifted by Nature, who bestows all things, with what others only attain after years of training, and he at the same time observed that he was now dealing with one of those. He understood from the very first strokes that there was in this youth something as in a hawk, who sees in his opponent only his prey, and thinks of nothing but getting him in his claws. Notwithstanding his own strength, he also noticed that it was not equal to Zbyszko's, and should he get exhausted before succeeding in giving a final stroke, the combat with this formidable, although less experienced, stripling, might result in his ruin. Thus reflecting, he determined to fight with the least possible effort, drew the shield closer to him, did not move much either forward or backward, restricted his motions, and gathered all the power of his soul and arm for one decisive stroke, and awaited his opportunity.

(…)

The terrible fight lasted longer than usual. A deathlike silence reigned in the porches. The only sounds heard were the sometimes ringing and sometimes hollow blows of the sharp points and edges of the axes against the shields. Such sights were not strange to the princes, knights and courtiers; and nevertheless a feeling, resembling terror, seemed to clutch all hearts as if with tongs. It was understood that this was not a mere exhibition of strength, skill and courage, but that in this fight there was a greater fury and despair, a greater and more inexorable stubbornness, a deeper vengeance. On one side terrible wrongs, love and fathomless sorrow; on the other, the honor of the entire Order and deep hatred, met on this field of battle for the Judgment of God.

Photo of Krakow Castle courtyard by Galen Frysinger

HMS Victory - Nelson's flagship and the most famous British warship in history

Talking about Patrick O’Brian leads me naturally to tell you about my visit to HMS Victory a few years ago on one of my trips to England. I wrote the following text not long after but never posted it.

When Peter Weir’s film Master and Commander – The Far Side of the World came out in 2003, I had no idea it would lead me to discover the greatest historical novelist of all time and a fascinating period of British history.
I had not seen the film yet when I picked up a copy of the book Master and Commander which was being marketed in conjunction with the film and written by an author I had never heard of: Patrick O’Brian. It was almost my duty to do so as a history buff, especially a military history buff. I read a passage or two and put it down. Weeks later, the seed of interest having sprouted, I picked up the book again and finally bought it without any great hope. Since then I have chain-read the entire 20 books of what is known by initiates as the Aubry-Maturin series many times. (See this post).

So, in 2005, on a trip to visit my parents in Yorkshire, I planned to make a detour to Portsmouth, home of HMS Victory, the only surviving British ship of the line from that period. Perhaps ‘pilgrimage’ would be a more appropriate to describing my state of mind as I took the train from London to Portsmouth on the south coast of England. And a few moments out of the history books will explain why.

Construction on HMS Victory began in 1759 at the Royal Dockyard at Chatham and she was launched on 7th May 1763. She was a ‘first rate’ ship of the line, that is, one with 100 guns or more. At a time when regular ships of the line carried 76 guns, she was one of the most powerful ships afloat and her role was to be a flagship, the ship chosen to carry the admiral of the fleet. The most famous of those admirals was Admiral Lord Nelson, hero of the Battle of the Nile. And it was aboard HMS Victory on 21st October 1805 that Nelson led his fleet to victory against a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. This famous victory removed the threat of invasion by the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte that had been hanging over England for many years. Without adequate naval protection against the Royal Navy, no French invasion fleet could now hope to cross the Channel safely. Unfortunately, victory was bought at a high price for the Royal Navy and for England: Admiral Lord Nelson was killed during the battle, shot by a French musket as he paced the quarterdeck of HMS Victory.

So it was with something approaching humility that I made my way to Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard complex on a September morn in 2005. I had seen photos on their web site and I was prepared (I thought) to be ‘blown over with a feather’. I didn’t know the half of it.
With hastening step I make my way along an old cobbled street flanked by old, low, red brick buildings. And then a square opens and there she is, the Victory.

You are immediately hit square amidships by a silent broadside of emotions. There she lies as she might have been seen by a rating reporting for duty over 200 years ago. Or as she might have been seen through the shaky glass of an enemy commander. Gun ports open, guns run out, tall masts higher than the buildings all around, huge yards all perfectly aligned, she imposes awe, respect, wonder. Here is the epitome, the last word, of the naval architect’s art of that time, carefully preserved and restored to her Battle of Trafalgar splendour. Note the 3 small flagpoles on the ground at the fore of the ship. They carry the flags of Admiral Lord Nelson’s famous signal to the fleet the day of the Battle of Trafalgar: ‘England expects every man will do his duty’.

As I approach I realise that she is deceptively huge. In these photos she may have the look of a small model ship, but I am here to tell you that up close she is utterly impressive by her size. Perhaps it is the fact that she is huge on a still-human scale. Men, not machines, built her: skilled craftsmen, using lost arts of shipbuilding, over a long period. Six thousand trees were used in her construction. She is 186 feet in length on the main gun deck, 50 feet wide at the broadest point. She displaced 3,500 tons (she is now in dry dock). She will not fit in your driveway. Note that she has 3 rows or decks of guns, which is why ‘first rate’ ships were also known as ‘3 deckers’. Regular 76 gun ships of the line, or ‘third rates’, had 2 decks of guns.

Looking up, I am amazed by the size of the anchors attached to the ship. The Victory carried a total of seven anchors of which the 4 largest, the 2 bower and 2 sheet anchors, weighed over 9400 pounds or 4.26 metric tons each. Notice the crown emblem at the end of the cathead (for land-lubbers, that would be that big piece of wood sticking out from which the anchors are deployed). The towering masts are supported laterally by huge grouped cables of rope, called shrouds (in the photo they resemble the strings of a violin or guitar) that are anchored to the hull. They are tarred black because they are part of the ‘standing rigging’, which is rarely handled by the sailors as opposed to the ‘running rigging’, which is handled often and is therefore not tarred. (Tarring helped protect the ropes from water damage). At the fore of the ship you can see the cutwater, the intricate head rails and the figurehead in the form of the Royal Crest with the Hanoverian coat of arms superimposed.

The Victory originally had open stern galleries leading off from the great cabins but they were closed in during a massive refit and reconstruction between 1801 and 1803. Below you can see the three levels of stern gallery windows. The upper deck cabin is the Captain’s quarters, the middle one that of the Admiral (divided into a day cabin and a dining room) and the lower one that of the officers, known as the wardroom.

Obviously, a stern composed essentially of windows (as opposed to a foot or more of solid oak as can be found elsewhere on the hull of the ship) is an excellent target for enemy cannon. Another reason is that a cannon ball fired along the length of a ship (called ‘raking’) would cause much more damage than one fired through the side of the ship. It was thus the earnest wish of any commander to try to manoeuvre his ship to ‘rake’ his enemy, surpassed only by the equally earnest wish of his counterpart to avoid it.

In the above photo you get a better idea of the size of the ship in relation to the passer-by.
Note the boat that has been lowered down to the ground with ropes from the quarter davits (the two black supports sticking out from the hull at 45 degrees). This was something of an innovation at the time, allowing a boat to be lowered and raised quickly and easily. Without davits, seamen had to lower and raise boats using tackles attached to the yards, a long and difficult manoeuvre. You can also clearly see the mizzenmast, the rear-most of the ship’s three masts, with its immense driver boom, the long yard at the foot of the mast leading away back and beyond the stern of the ship.

Having thus far been blown over with a feather in a thoroughly seaman-like manner, I make my way to the portside gangway (the starboard entry is reserved for naval personnel). With the words ‘So this is what it must have felt like’ echoing in my mind like a mantra, I come aboard through the entry port, a convenient ‘door’ halfway up the side of the hull.
I find myself in the half-darkness of the middle gun deck. It smells of old wood, rope, and history. The deck head and especially the deck beams are low: I’m 6’2, I have to stoop. On either side stand rows of big, black, squat guns, their muzzles run out, protruding through open gun ports. On this deck the guns are 24-pounders (24 refers to the weight of the shot or cannon ball they fired). The guns are lightest on the upper decks and heaviest on the lower decks in order to keep the ship stable rather than ‘top heavy’ in the water. The breakdown of guns in the Victory looks like this:

Forecastle: two 68-pounder carronades and two medium-long 12-pounders
Quarter deck: twelve short 12-pounders
Upper gun deck: thirty long 12-pounders
Middle gun deck: twenty-eight 24-pounders
Lower gun deck: thirty 32-pounders, the ship’s heaviest calibre guns

Yes, that makes 104 guns, but the Navy prefers a nice round figure. (The original design called for 100). It also makes for a broadside with a weight of metal of more than 1000 pounds or half a ton, which, as Patrick O’Brian would say, ‘is a nasty thing to receive’.
As I walk around this deck I realise that I am basically on a powerful floating gun platform. To put things in perspective, there are more guns here in this one ship than were present at the Battle of Waterloo. Now consider that at the Battle of Trafalgar the 27 British ships of the line faced off against 33 French and Spanish ships of the line. That makes for lot of heavy metal flying around. And here I am, 200 years later (almost to the day), standing on the ship that was in the thick of the action.
In the photo above we are on the forecastle looking towards the huge bowsprit. You can see one of the carronades on its sliding mount.

I make me way down to the lower deck and its thirty heavy 32-pounders. I am told that the planking underfoot here is original. This deck is where most of the crew ate their meals and slept. The Victory had a nominal crew of 850 in wartime (less in peacetime). They must have been standing on each other’s toes. True, a portion of the crew would always ‘have a watch’, that is, they would be on deck. A portion of the crew, about 140, was Marines and they berthed separately on the middle deck. But it is hard to imagine 500 or so men eating and sleeping on that one deck.

It did not take 850 men to sail the ship: about 100 would have been enough for that, under most conditions. Such numbers of men were necessary to man all the guns. Each 32-pounder here weighs three and three-quarter tons. Once fired the gun kicks back several feet from the gun port until it is halted by attached ropes. Once reloaded it has to be ‘run out’ or pushed forward so that its muzzle again protrudes through the gun port for firing. Little wonder then that each of these heavy guns had crews of 8 or 9 men, less for the lighter guns.
As can be expected aboard a flagship, the majority of seamen on the Victory were professionals, able and ordinary seamen, with a relatively small number of pressed landsmen.
Included in the figure of 850 are about 140 Marines and 4 officers (a captain of Marines and 3 lieutenants). They berthed on the middle deck, one of the reasons being that they were ideally placed to guard the officers in case of a mutiny (the wardroom is on this deck). The Marines were a disciplined elite military unit aboard, much as they are today. Although they helped with the working of the ship and with manning guns in battle their real raison d’être, the role they were trained for, was to form a disciplined company of men armed with muskets to repel boarders or to board enemy ships themselves. Often Marines would be assigned to the tops (small platforms on the masts) from where they could fire down on enemy crews. (Admiral Lord Nelson himself was shot in this way).
To oversee this vast crew, the Captain of the ship had with him at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar, 9 lieutenants, the master (responsible for the sailing of the ship), 7 master’s mates and 22 midshipmen along with other officers and warrant officers.

I can hardly describe to you the simple elegance of the ‘the Great Cabin’, running the entire width of the ship, illuminated by the impressive array of stern windows decorated in a rich wood panelling. (Photography was not permitted here). The white painted walls and deck head are accented by burgundy window sashes and chair coverings. The walls and deck head are curved: there is not a right-angle in the room.
Here Admiral Lord Nelson, and many other great admirals before and after him, lived and worked and took decisions that would have far-reaching effects on the conduct of the war in progress and on history. Leading to the Great Cabin is the admiral’s dining cabin where he entertained his captains and other guests. A long dining table runs the entire width of the room. The Captain’s quarters on the quarter deck above are almost as elegant.
Below on the middle deck lies the wardroom, the mess of the other officers aboard. It is not open to visitors for the good reason that it is being used by a modern-day admiral. For the Victory is even today a flagship: that of the Second Sea Lord and Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command.

I was very tired that day, suffering from jet lag and lack of sleep. But I eagerly drank in all the sights and impressions of that beautiful ship and the recollection of it is vivid with me even today. And without a doubt, my appreciation of that ship was all the more enhanced by my having read the foremost literary work on the subject beforehand: Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series.

See also HMS Victory – Britain’s Ship of Theseus

HMS Victory - Britain's 'Ship of Theseus'

I remember as a youth reading about the legend of Theseus. As a young boy, the future King of Athens volunteered to be one of the seven youths sent as a sacrifice every seven years to King Minos of Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur that lived there in the labyrinth. Theseus hides a sword in his tunic and slays the beast. On the return journey to Athens he forgets to change the black sail of his ship to a white one as agreed with his father to signify his success. His father Aegeus believes his son dead and commits suicide by throwing himself into the sea, giving his name to the Aegean.

According to Plutarch’s Life of Theseus, the ship Theseus used on his return to Athens was kept in the Athenian harbor as a memorial for several centuries.

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place...

The ship had to be maintained in a seaworthy state, for it annually carried the Athenian envoys to the festival of Apollo at Delos.
As the wood of the ship wore out or rotted and was replaced, it was unclear to philosophers how much of the original ship actually remained, giving rise to the philosophical question whether it should be considered "the same" ship or not. Such philosophical questions about the nature of identity are sometimes referred to as the Ship of Theseus Paradox.

For Athenians, the preserved ship kept fresh their understanding that Theseus had been an actual, historic figure, which none then doubted.


From Wikipedia

Reading about the ship of Theseus brought to mind my trip to England in 2005 and my visit to HMS Victory. The Victory was the flagship of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 where the British Fleet virtually destroyed an equivalent French fleet thus eliminating the threat of invasion of Britain by Napoleon.
My visit to this ship merits a post or ten of itself. Over 6,000 trees went to build it, all by hand. The photo does not do justice to the size of the ship. This was at the time the largest man-made moveable object ever made. Going aboard you feel small, insignificant, humbled. Some of the ropes are so thick you probably couldn’t get your arms around them. The masts are about 4 feet in diameter at deck level. The ship, like the ship of Theseus, has been restored and inevitably some parts have been replaced by ‘new and stronger timber’, mainly on the upper decks. The lower decks are largely original and you can walk the same planks that Nelson and his crew walked 200 years ago.
The Victory is all that remains of the Royal Navy of the Age of Fighting Sail and we would not have even that but for the pleadings of a wife of a First Lord (of the Admiralty) that it should be preserved. (The Admiralty of the period had no sentimental qualms about sending famous ships to the breaker’s yard).

Like the ship of Theseus for the Athenians, Britain’s Victory ‘keeps fresh their understanding’ of Nelson and his navy and what they did at Trafalgar and in other battles in that critical and historic period. Personally, it makes no difference to me that only 30% of the ship is ‘original’. Like the Gold Pavilion, the spirit and intention of the original builders is what survives and that is what we want to see.

.

See also HMS Victory – Nelson’s flagship and the most famous British warship in history