HMS Warrior | RobsBlogs

I think HMS Warrior has shown up in the blog before. During our trip to Portsmouth last year, I got a different perspective on it from previous visits because I went up the Spinnaker Tower. I did also take a look from ground level too, though. There were some people up in the rigging working on the ship. I don’t have a great time with heights so that would not be a good thing for me I suspect. An open door of a plane is fine but that is different.

The view from above is a great way to see the ship (or anything for that matter). It also gives you the background of the historic royal dockyard. Having a 60,000 ton aircraft carrier as a backdrop just goes to show how things have changed over the years. At one point, this would have been the pinnacle of warship design but now it is considered archaic. How things move on.

Continuing a theme from some recent posts with preserved Royal Navy ships, I add another part of the Portsmouth historic dockyard. HMS Warrior was the world’s first iron hulled warship. See served a reasonable career as a warship but, as was the case in those days, technology moved on fast and she was gradually relegated to lesser duties. Eventually she became a hulk for storage and then a floating oil jetty. Restoration was undertaken in Hartlepool in the 80s and she was opened to the public in Portsmouth in 1987.

I have not ever visited her. I moved away from the area around the time she arrived and, while I have been back there more recently, I didn’t include her as part of the visit. I have photographed her from a distance though. Writing this has made me think that I need to visit at some point. With Victory and Mary Rose in the same area, you might get a bit “shipped out” but I shall have to give it a go some time.