Last Friday the HMS Victory fired a 64 gun rolling broadside to to help launch the National Museum of the Royal Navy.   (While the broadside was impressively load and smoky, the amount of gunpowder used for the symbolic broadside was reported to be less than the gunners onboard at Trafalgar would have used for a single shot.)  The creation of the NMRN has been a long-term objective of the Navy Board and will ensure that naval heritage as a whole is properly focused and deployed to its full potential in promoting the Naval Service.

HMS Victory’s future in Portsmouth is secured

Also on Friday, Baroness Taylor, the under secretary of state and minister for international defence and security, along with the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope confirmed that the ship will remain as a living museum at Portsmouth’s Historic Dockyard.

A review was carried out into the role of HMS Victory in July 2008 to consider various options for the ship, which receives 350,000 visitors a year, including the possibility of setting up an independent charitable trust.

Baroness Taylor said: ”When we initiated a study into how best to sustain the ship in the future, there was some wild speculation that we were planning to sell off the ship.

”I am happy to reassure you all that HMS Victory will remain a commissioned warship and the flagship of the Second Sea Lord.”

Sir Mark added: ”Standing here in the shadows of HMS Victory and her modern equivalent HMS Daring, it is impossible not to feel the hand of history.