John wrote:
"Dan Entwisle, a journalist specialising in maritime defence, said: "Britain has a terrible, shocking record in preserving its naval heritage."
Well I'm note sure he's right there...thoughts chaps?
Kind regards
John
He's very right. HMS Belfast (light cruiser) is the only thing close to a major RN warship of WWI and WWII was only saved at the last moment (HMS Caroline is a LC too). HMS Warrior was only saved as it was being used as a oil jetty, but so was the ironclad HMS Agincourt of 1865 that was scrapped in 1960. The world's oldest surviving clipper ship City of Adelaide is sitting rotting away in Scotland and has been threatened with scrapping many times.
This is the National Historic fleet list - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_H ... Collection we do well with small ships and sailing vessels but there is nothing substantial considering how much heavy metal we have had. Yes we have HMS Victory but in originality terms it's a bit of a Trigger's broom.
There were around 62 Battleships in commission in 1897, with a further 68 to built after up until HMS Vanguard completed in 1946 (scrapped 1960) and we have precisely none preserved. No aircraft carriers either.
You can't preserve ever danged thing, there is only so much room to put stuff and I have been informed that ships can be pretty big. You should consider doing what you did with some of your dodgy submarines a few years back and flog 'em to us, we buy other nations crap. Look, we are even buying the latest from Lockheed .... with no engines in 'em btw at $60 million a throw when every previous govmnt has insisted that because of our climate we need twin engine a/c. My tax $$$ at work.
There was a thread here a little while ago that examined the Naval heritage and although at first it seemed not much when it was all thought about and pulled from the woodwork there was quite a bit.
But as mentioned above, not everything can be saved although sometimes worthy examples are let go.
When it comes to preservation it's down to the needs and interests of whosoever has the money to make it happen
So odd obscure things may well be saved instead of National heritage.
It's bad enough with aircraft, given their size, but what about ships and there is a limit to what you can do with them and unlike aeroplanes, stack them in a few chunks on a couple of low loaders and taking them 150 miles up country is not an option.
Strengthens the case for anything preserved to go visit it and not assume it will always be there, so even being saved might just mean lingering on a few more years falling apart until the axe falls.
Garry
"In the world of virtual reality things are not always what they seem."
Vancouver wrote:You can't preserve ever danged thing, there is only so much room to put stuff and I have been informed that ships can be pretty big. You should consider doing what you did with some of your dodgy submarines a few years back and flog 'em to us, we buy other nations crap. Look, we are even buying the latest from Lockheed .... with no engines in 'em btw at $60 million a throw when every previous govmnt has insisted that because of our climate we need twin engine a/c. My tax $$$ at work.
But we don't want to preserve everything the fact is we haven't preserved one single Dreadnought, not even the name ship herself that started it all.
DarrenL wrote:The world's oldest surviving clipper ship City of Adelaide is sitting rotting away in Scotland and has been threatened with scrapping many times.
In March 2012, CSCOAL, the Adelaide based group, is well underway with the assembly of the cradle in preparation for load lifting certification.
Despite the protestors, preparation for the move is on schedule.
The cradle has been fully assembled, and load lifting capacity certified on 23 March 2012, in readiness for assembly under the ship
