"The ship which sank bow-first..." Topic

HMS Victoria is one of only two ships known to be sunk – and still sitting – bolt upright. She is like an arrow stuck in the seabed of the Mediterranean, off the Lebanese coast. The principal cause is the huge gun turret and two 16.5-inch guns at the front plus her ram bow. She was bow heavy and such an odd shape that she and her sister were called 'the pair of slippers'.

The sinking was controversial as the Royal Navy was conducting fleet manoeuvres when it happened which resembled a 'square dance'. Two columns turned towards each other and HMS Camperdown's ram bow tore into Victoria. The result was a massive inrush of water at the bow and she went down like a stone. A young naval officer with a high fever was lucky enough to get out the window of the sick bay as she sank. His name was John Jellicoe and he would, one day, command the Grand Fleet at Jutland.

Dive footage here:
YouTube link
The stern is reachable by free divers, the bow is not.

Wiki here:
link
Includes a detailed explanation of how it sank.

Barry

Interesting.
The court martial appears similar to the court of inquiry orderd by the ruler of Hesse Cassel after Trenton. It made sure to blame the dead and exonerate the living.

Read "Admirals In Collison" by Richard Hough for the best account of this fateful day. Includes the trial.

What an amazing dive! I wish I could still dive….

John, that is often true even today as the dead don't complain or sue.

Andrew Gordon's "The Rules of the Game" discusses this sinking in some depth and shows the culture that created this accident and the problems it caused at Jutland.

link

The Russian monitor Rusalka is similarly impaled into the sea bottom of the Baltic.

Yes, thanks for this, an interesting story. Water flooding the bow and churning propellers may have driven this ship into the mud in a similar fashion to Victoria. Found in 2003 after 130 years.