On August 20th 2007, my cousin Andrew Grantham Davis and I were in Portsmouth Dockyard for a visit to HMS Victory. This was one of those rare occasions when there was little restoration work being conducted and very few visitors onboard. Consequently Andrew and I roamed the ship and I took many photos that would not normally be possible, showing details of the ship in all its glory. Andrew asked me to send him the photos and I thought I'd share them on my Blog since they show detail of interest to ship modelers. Since I am collecting the new Sails of War 1/1000 models just released, I will use some of the images to provide a little extra detail to the otherwise very nice out-of-the-box models.
There is no finer example of a ship-of-the-line. I have visited HMS Victory since a boy and have never tired of seeing her. She has never looked so good as on this overcast Summer day. Here are my photos, un-retouched.