Scale: 1:48. A model of the Victory (1737) made entirely in wood, built from wood in layers based on waterlines, and painted in realistic colours. There is a marked division along the waterline, between the upper and lower halves of the model. The hull is painted white below the waterline and black above with yellow ochre bands running the length of the three gundecks. The gunports are shown painted brown and outlined in red. The paint finish on the port side is badly degraded. The quarter galleries and figurehead are not depicted, although the support for the figurehead is shown.

The centre of the model has been hollowed out, which reduces the overall weight of the model. Inspection of the interior of the model with an endoscope revealed this had been carried out with a gouge with a concave cutting edge after the lifts had been glued together.

The top of the model has been closed with thin panels across the top of the bulwarks.

The model’s ‘decks’ have been glued on top of the upper lift. There is a hole with a diameter of 1.8cm cut into the deck in the waist and another hole at the fore end of the poop deck.

On stern and starboard broadside it is painted 'Victory.'.

On the paper label applied to quarter deck reads:

“Victory 100 1737. Catalogued (1923) under No.63. If the beam is taken as moulded as in the Princessa model the Dimensions fit the Establishment of 1719 and 1733 for 100-gun ships. The distribution of ports and deadeyes visible on the starboard side beneath the overpainting does not agree with that shown either by model No.43 or by the contemporary Draughts of the Victory. This model may perhaps represent an early stage in the design”

The length and midship section does match that of the original plan, which was drawn to the 1719 Establishment. The model is mounted on three inline supports and displayed on a dark-stained wooden baseboard with bevelled edges.

Block models were made by, or under the supervision of, the Master Shipwright in the Royal Dockyards. They were made to plans which had first been drawn on paper. The models were then sent to the Navy Board Office in Tower Hill in London for approval.

The ‘Victory’ joined the Channel Fleet in 1741 after being repaired following a collision with the ‘Lion’ in 1740. It was armed with heavy guns, carrying twenty-eight 32- or 42-pound guns on the gun deck, twenty-eight 24-pounders on the middle deck, twenty-eight 12-pounders on the upper deck, twelve 6-pounders on the quarterdeck and four 6-pounders on the forecastle. It was the last first rate to be armed only with brass guns.

In April and May 1744, it served on the Lisbon convoy before becoming Admiral Balchen’s flagship later that year. The ship is best known as ‘Balchen’s Victory’, after the Admiral, lost with the ship when she foundered in a storm in October 1744.

N.J. Ball