Getting the great wooden blocks out from between the cradles that have supported HMS ‘Victory’ since 1922 was definitely a game of two halves. The first, on the starboard side of her hull, came out sweetly. But the second, beneath the hull, was very different. All the weight of the ship at that point – Cradle 5 – was sitting on it, and the ML engineering team could hardly hoik the flagship up momentarily to pull it out. So there was only one way forward – drill a series of holes, then cut between them with a powered saw. Hour after hour passed ; it looked to our inexpert eyes like it wasn’t shifting. Then quite suddenly it did. But wait – what had been done was just one-third of one block. There are 22 of these cradles with their wooden block buffers…
NO SHORT CUT
28 March 2019
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years of experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four-time award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with the Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995 when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.