HMS Victory Special

Update - see below

 W L West & Sons Ltd is delighted to be involved in the supply and milling of Oak for repairs on HMS Victory - flagship of the Second Sea Lord and Commander in Chief Naval Home Command.

Our timber buyer, together with the Forestry Commission located suitable trees in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. These were donated to the navy for repairs to Victory.

  Replacement Oak trees were planted in the forest 200 years ago as a recommendation from Admiral Lord Nelson. This followed Lord Nelson’s dismay and anger at the state of the available timber when he visited the forest in search of timber for ship construction in the Royal dockyards at the beginning of the 1800’s.

^{(picture courtesy of Peter Darley)}

On Wednesday 19 May 2004 Lieutenant-Commander Frank Nowosielski, HMS Victory’s current commanding officer, used an original Royal Navy marking hammer to mark it as Royal Naval property.

This was a tradition that has been re-in acted for this event. The timber was then transported to West’s sawmill in Selham. Later in June the logs will be cut into beams for repairs to one of the lower gun decks.

• From the upper surface of the keel to the bottom of the hull is approximately 1.5metres of layered Oak.
• Victory contained approximately 6000 trees, 90% of which were Oak (this equates to 100 acres of woodland)
• Oak, Elm and Fir was used for the Hull, Fir, Spruce and pine for the masts and yards
• The hull was just over 0.6metre thick at the waterline
• And cost at launch £63,176

Logs cut to Beams

On Thursday 10th June 2004 the logs cut for HMS Victory were converted from logs into beams. This was documented for the Navy by a professional photographer. Here is a brief photo record of the days events

The first cut (in our yard), cutting the log to length.

The first cut through the mill

Double checking size

The beams and the team that selected and milled the beams, ready for delivery to Fleet Support Ltd.

^{(picture courtesy of Fleet Support Ltd)}

............And finally, the beam after the Fleet Support craftsmen have cut and shaped the beam, and fitted them into place.

W.L. WEST & SONS LTD
Selham, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0PJ
United Kingdom

Tel: 01798 861611   
Fax: 01798 861633   

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