HMS Victory - A. P McGowan

HMS Victory is the world's best-known warship. She was the flagship of Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and today lies at Portsmouth, still a commissioned vessel, where she is visited by thousands each year who marvel at her strength and beauty and her wonderful state of preservation after more than 200 years of life. This has been achieved through the research and restoration lavished on her over the years, and this book describes her whole career and that restoration in detail. But it is much more than a simple narrative for at the core of the book are 200 superb drawings, recently commissioned, which show her as she was in 1805. It is, therefore, both the story of a famous ship's career as well as a highly detailed technical manual on the construction and fitting, and the alterations and restoration of an eighteenth-century man-of-war. HMS Victory is the ultimate reference work for historians, modelmakers and enthusiasts as well as an invaluable guide for the great army of conservationists who are working on historical vessels around the world.