This last week we visited the Royal Maritime Museum in Portsmouth. We got to tour Lord Nelson's ship and see it as it would have been in the battle of Trafalgar. I learned that I would have been a very grumpy sailor indeed. Not only is it cramped, dark, and they have food full of weevils, but they had to wash their clothes in urine (sterile but gross) and you would have had to be under 5'4'' in order to not hit your head. That said, I'm very glad I live when I do.
Nelson's flagship, the HMS Victory. It has no masts right now because they are too heavy, and are slowly crushing the ships. They intend to replace them with lighter carbon fiber masts. The same is true of most of the cannons there now.
Nelson's office space.
This formal dining area could be packed away and the room readied for battle in 20 minutes.
Nelson's formal suit. The arm is pinned because he lost his right arm as well as his right eye in different battles.
Nelson's cradle, or as the English call it, a cot.
Nelson won the battle, but died in the aftermath.
Cross section of a cannon showing the cartridge, shot, and wadding.
Different kinds of shot. The ones with chains or a bar between them are for tearing through ships, the others are kinds of grapeshot which split upon being shot and are for killing people. Ugh.
Just a nice little sailor's kitchen.
It is hard to see in the dark, but that is my foot next to the rope so you can see the size of the ropes on these ships.
On a roof beam of the infirmary. Someone didn't like their job much...
We also saw the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's ship. It sank just outside of its own harbor and was preserved in the mud. 400 years later we have dug it up and built a museum around it. It is being dried slowly so that it won't disintegrate. It should be dry in 2017.
The netting that was supposed to protect them ended up causing the greatest tragedy. With 400-700 men on board, only 25 survived.
The remains of the ship.
The ships dog
Bathtime, anyone?
Crows nest
A regular bow vs. a longbow. I could draw the regular one easily. The longbow took both hands while bracing my feet. Archeologists have been able to identify the archers on the ship because the longbows caused their backs and arms to twist and prevented fusing in their shoulder blades. A longbow archer would have begun their training at seven in order to shoot one of these massive weapons.
You can learn more about the Mary Rose here: Mary Rose
After the Mary Rose, we went to the action stations, which was an interactive museum. I crashed the helicopter simulator three times in a row. I guess it was a good thing I never pursued that particular desire of mine. I also got to try a couple of different weapons simulations, including a machine gun. Then came my favorite part. Rock climbing! They had a climbing wall which you were only supposed to try once, but nobody was there and the guy running it could see I was having fun, so he let me try all the climbs. I had a ball. Rachel was very patient with me.
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