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HMS VICTORY’S 1805 CUTTER


By ‘Mr Warwick’, Crewman, VICTORY Cutter Crew


One special visitor to Dartmouth Royal Regatta every year is the working cutter from Nelson’s famous flagship HMS VICTORY. Now flagship to the Second Sea Lord, VIC- TORY is preserved in dry dock at HM Naval Base Portsmouth. She is the only first rate ship-of the-line in existence and is the oldest commissioned warship in the world. VICTORY’s Cutter is a part of the ship, which is why she wears the White Ensign.


The precursors of the Navy’s clinker built cutters were the robust boats used by Deal fishermen who worked them off the beach to serve ships in the great anchorage of the Downs. They proved so effective that the Navy purchased them locally, since the Royal Dockyards were not equipped for clinker building. Ships from frigates upward were issued with them and they were used to ferry officers, dispatches and supplies, ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore. They were also used to carry boarding and landing parties. Fitted with a small gun and an armed crew, including marines, the cutter was an effective assailant.


HMS VICTORY’s Cutter is a 25ft (7.6m) clinker-built replica of the type of cutter pres- ent at the Battle of Trafalgar. The flagship has two cutters. One, of wych elm on oak timbers, was built at the Historic Dockyard at Chatham and is now a static exhibit slung from the davits on the starboard quarter of HMS VICTORY. The working Cutter is of glued marine ply on laminated mahogany timbers.


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