It would be churlish to depart the South Coast on such glorious summer days with no excursion around the many museums that illustrate the history of our foremost naval port since the days Henry VIII lost his flagship thereabouts: it preserved here too, or what's left of it.
(A positively Proustian sentence that has left me exhausted.)
Sailing in you cannot miss one of the two carriers the UK possesses, looking with its marquees like it's being prepared for a tea-party, though it's attributable here to its ongoing maintenance. A problem with conventional navies is that at any one time a significant portion of its inventory is laid up in this way: a dilemma drones will go a long way to rectify.
The best overview of the harbour however comes from atop the Spinnaker Tower, the UK's tallest observation tower (although that at Brighton might elevate the eyes that bit higher).
At the various museums that comprise the historic naval dockyards (available on a single ticket that lasts a year, even though everyone knows you'll never be coming this way again), you can see HMS Victory along with the spot upon which he died in a kiss-me-quick-Hardy hat.
More impressive perhaps is HMS Warrior or the first iron-clad sailing-cum-steamship that was built in 1860 and could fire cannon-balls over the horizon at a range of five miles and as a consequence was untouchable. Most intriguing perhaps was the fact it appears to have within its bowels a spare propeller-blade, seen top row third left.
Alongside we've moved on to the Submarine Museum over on the other side of the harbour and without leaving the car-park there's an exhibit in the shape of one such propeller adapted for such vessels. These have to be as undetectable as possible, so they feature any number of bizarrely-shaped blades designed to reduce cavitation whilst they turn at a lethargic pace.
In the 1960s there were apparently sixty-two subs harboured here, and now there are none beside a fascinating post-war relic that you get to do a tour of, and which served in both the Far East and afterward the Arctic as the War got Colder. We've now a handful of nuclear submarines instead based in Scotland, and some of which will be undergoing maintenance (see earlier comments) at any one time. Worryingly when one of these test-fired one among its Trident missiles, it didn't work properly.
Check out however that first pic on the bottom row and tell me whether you've ever seen so magnificent a set of push-rods?
We've mover on however to the Munitions Museum at neighbouring Gosport, that is renamed 'Explosion!' in the hope of attracting the younger visitor. Worth a visit in order to get the set if nothing else, it includes fabulous exhibits like a wooden model of a design of naval gun that sadly would only feature on-screen nowadays, touched only by way of a mouse.
It's been a jolly day out as ever though, and topped off by encountering this 1930s steam-wagon on the high street beyond. Fully restored with local naval engineering expertise it ferries passengers around from pub to pub in the sunshine... something I imagine happens to us when we get to heaven.
And to cap it all off, a two-seat Spitfire is doing the rounds of HMS Daedalus if you are able to afford the £3,250 required for a quick-ish spin; although you can settle for a cup of tea and a Victoria sponge-cake as I did on the day. Daedalus is in fact an airfield and not a ship, naval personnel calling anything that moves or does not a 'ship' for reasons best known to themselves.
This constitutes the 1500th post appearing in the blog, which overall has attracted a third of a million views and as many as 3,000 in a single day. Recently I suggested its apparent success might be attributed to AI bots scraping it for material and this appears to be a clear and present danger. Accordingly the next 1,500 posts will be about how the moon is made of cheese, so Google offers it up to genuine enquiry.
