HMS Victory : Her Construction, Career, and Restoration

Rating:
Summary: The great ship saved
Review: Alan McGowan, Chairman of the Victory Advisory Technical Committee, and Canadian illustrator John McKay have produced a truly wonderful book about the greatest of sailing warships, HMS Victory, which serves not only as a tribute to the ship and the men who sailed her, but also to those who saved and restored her to her present grace. Unlike USS Constitution, which truly is a corpse of a once beautiful frigate, a ghost of her lovely War of 1812 self, Victory has been returned to her precise appearance at her moment of greatest fame, October 21, 1805, the Battle of Trafalgar.

The first half of the book goes into startling, fascinating detail about the condition of Victory and the many years since her permanent drydocking in 1922 spent repairing and restoring her. The battle against dry and wet rot, death watch beetle infestations, and the odd German bomb (a bomb fell into Victory's drydock in 1941 - by some miracle she didn't catch fire, which would have destroyed her utterly) has gone on more or less continuously, and it is interesting to read how the restorers have learned from earlier mistakes (new repair work has sometimes rotted within a few years) and adopted new techniques and materials. While she appears very authentic, there have had to be compromises, cleverly disguised, and these are described by McGowan - emergency escape doors carefully camouflaged in the hull, her rigging replaced with polypropylene rope, her heavy wooden spars replaced with steel, her wrought-iron lower masts (themselves borrowed from the armored frigate HMS Shah in the 1880s) fastened through her keel into the floor of the dock to relieve the pressure on her 240 year old hull.

In the second half of the book, artist John McKay contributes a series of magnificent drawings showing Victory in her Trafalgar configuration, with details of rigging, armament, interior layouts, etc. This portfolio of illustrations will provide almost all the reference needed for anyone interested in building a model of HMS Victory in her prime.

I cannot recommend this book more highly to anyone interested in sailing warships in general and HMS Victory in particular. I don't give many books five stars, but this one deserves every one.

Rating:
Summary: Best equal Victory book I've read
Review: Although this book deals mainly with the restoration of the HMS Victory it does delve into the history of the ship in the process. My resaons for purchasing the book relate to a modelling project that I'm doing and knowing what problems are associated with restoring the Victory help in my quest to build an accurate model. The book starts out with a brief history of the ship and then gets stuck into the restoration aspect which does get a bit tedious but I'm glad someone has made the effort to document this aspect of the Victory's career. It is important. The second half of the book is filled with outstanding drawings of every aspect of the ship you could ever ask for. John McKay has done an outstanding job with the drawings here and I'm of the opinion that this book combined with his other book "The 100 gun ship Victory" would enable the construction of thr Victory from the keel up. "The Anatomy of Nelson's Ships" is another must have and I have all three.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: I bought this book shortly after it was released. It was money well spent. I am in the process of creating my version of HMS Victory and USS Constitution in 3D. The first half of the book shores up my knowledge of the history of the ship and her ongoing restoration with well written text and great photos. But it is the second half of the book that was worth the purchase. The author has had illustrations included that lend themselves perfectly to rendering the ship in 3D computer graphics: all the drawings are done in exploded isometric perspective views, showing all the parts of deck equipment, masts, rigging, armaments, hull construction, etc. This allows 3D artists to really concentrate on creating very detailed 3D models. The drawings have even helped me create deck objects, etc., for my 3D USS Constitution, that were indicative of all ships from that era, that I couldn't find for her elsewhere. If you are a 3D artist, and need a comprehensive source for details on ships of the Great Age of Sail era, this is it.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful book cleverly stuffed with exciting material.
Review: In all honesty and simplicity this book is great. It is a substantial sized book with excellent paper quality. The layout is professionally done which makes it very enjoyable to return to on a regular basis. The first half of this book contains very interesting info in the form of tables, charts and text on the Victory's history and career, pictures also help tell the story. The second half of the book is made up of drawings; John McKay once again has done a superb job at preserving the Victory's details. These drawings make a great accompaniment to the drawings in "The 100-Gun Ship Victory" by McKay. They are of a different style, if one could say that. More of an effort has been put towards conveying detail and workings rather than drawings suitable for reconstruction. In closing I will say that the title explains the contents accurately, and the reviews below are true and accurate. Enjoy.
Michael

Rating:
Summary: A Lavish Treat for Devotees of the Sailing Warship
Review: Much like the Victory herself, this book is heavy, handsome, and expensive. Written by the Chairman of the Victory Advisory Technical Committee, it contains discussions of the Royal Navy, the Victory's construction and active service, her post-Trafalgar history, and many particular aspects of her restoration. However, the big attraction for many readers will be visual-- the striking photographs, some in color, and especially the 90 pages of drawings by John McKay. While some of the tables and descriptions of the ship's restoration might cause a casual Patrick O'Brian fan's eyes to glaze over, this book is invaluable for those who always wanted to know which rider knees were made of which wood and how they were fastened together in 1759--and in 1959. The effort of the scholars and shipwrights who have maintained Victory as she is today, over 240 years after she was first laid down, is truly awe-inspiring.