I...have finally seen...the HMS Victory. If you don't know what that is, it's pretty much the most important thing that's every happened to me in my life. Studying history can be really boring if you spend all your time reading and not enough time seeking out cool things in museums and Historic Dockyards. The nice thing about the Victory is that you can actually touch a ship because the ship is the museum. IS THIS REAL LIFE?
P.S. If you're wondering why it looks kind of funny, they took down part of the masts to do some major repairs on the whole ship. Giant wooden ships built in the 1700's tend to settle into all kinds of weird shapes so...they're looking at that.
When I was in seventh grade my dad introduced me to the Horatio Hornblower series on A&E, which was/is nothing short of amazing. After that I was obsessed with the Age of Sail, especially anything happening from the French Revolution to the Napoleonic Wars. Watching Hornblower, which is fully of dudes in fancy hats yelling "FIYAAH" and shooting cannons, was kind of like watching a really hardcore verison of Star Trek. There is no food replicator, only salt pork and dried peas. You didn't just aimlessly wander around the halls and randomly touch panels on the wall, you had to climb up rope rigging in the middle of a sea storm and haul up a giant canvas sail or die. And there was no touchy-feely Federation sending starships on science missions, there was only Bonaparte. And you had to destroy him.
So what's this ship for then? It's incredibly famous because it was the flagship of Admiral Horatio Nelson, who is one of Britain's most famous war heroes. Nelson died in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, which was a huge "eff you" from England to Napoleon. Basically, Napoleon wanted to invade England because he was an egomaniacal greedy bastard (this is serious history scholarship going on now) and England had lots of money and stuff. Eventually he abandoned this plan cause England had a ridiculously awesome navy and the French/Spanish ones were bleh, but after Admiral Nelson's fleet literally destroyed the major French and Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean, everyone in England was like ENGLAND 1 NAPOLEON 0.
I read Napoleon Bonaparte by Alan Schom and what happened was this:
Napoleon: let's build a fleet of flimsy little barges to invade England with!
Advisors: wut
Napoleon: WE'RE GONNA INVADE ENGLAND WITH WEIRD BOATS
Advisors: that's a terrible plan
Napoleon: I'M EMPEROR AND I WANT IT
Advisors: omg calm down crazy, we'll build your stupid boats
Boats: *le capsize*
Napoleon: Crap!
Also, Admiral Villeneuve (one of whose direct descendants is a friend of mine...HEH) was terrified of actually doing his job and was hiding out in the Caribbean instead of doing Napoleon stuff, but Nelson followed him all the way there and back to Europe. Villeneuve had avoided all Napoleon's orders and was doing a victory lap back to France but DUN DUN DUNNN Nelson was waiting for them when they turned around off the coast of Spain, and he was like OH HEY VILLENEUVE I was thinking I would DESTROY YOUR ENTIRE FLEET WITHOUT LOSING A SINGLE SHIP. Nelson was shot down by snipers in the middle of the battle and got a crazy state funeral back in England and everyone was super sad, meanwhile Villeneuve slunk back to France but had to leave cause people wanted to lynch him. So he went to America and had a bunch of really cool descendants who I party with occasionally.
LET'S SEE THE SHIP.
I just remembered that scene in Star Trek: Generations when the TNG crew was on a frigate or something on the holodeck (pretending to be in the 19th century cause apparently they don't have any real duties...we all know Starfleet just parties on their ships 24/7). Picard says something about how freeing it would be to work on a sailing ship and just use the stars to navigate and Riker was like...sir maybe you should sit down, you're confused.
The ticket I bought for the Historic Dockyards is actually good for two more ships, some museums and a harbor tour, but I just wanted to check the place out. My ticket is also good for a year, so I'll definitely be back at some point, maybe when the sun isn't blazing in my face and screwing with my pictures. I didn't get to leave my paw prints on as many things as I would have liked; the stairs are incredibly steep and and you need to hold onto the railings with both hands. Also you spend most of your time ducking under beams an inch from your head and squinting in the semi-darkness.
But all of that made it feel really authentic like I was REALLY THERE except it was missing the one thing that would have made it real...the boat was not moving. Thank GOD it wasn't moving. I may love the idea of big ships but I get horrible motion sickness so would unfortunately not make it to the gun decks to scream FIYAAH. I would instead be screaming for them to please MAKE THE BOAT STOP ROCKING PLEASE. It's a real shame...I really want one of those pointy fore-and-aft hats.
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