Her active service life began on Friday June 13 when she sailed from Spithead as the Flagship of the Channel Fleet and first cleared her decks for action on the July 23, 1778.Ī story in itself is the construction of the Victory. On May 8, 1778, she set sail for sea duty for the first time exactly 13 years and a day, 4,746 days from the time of her launching. Sir John Lindsay, Victory's first Captain, took command In March 1778. She took seven years to build at a cost is today's money of 50 million English pounds, designed by Thomas Slade of the Royal Navy and laid down in Chatham Dockyard, England. HMS Victory is a first-rate warship with four masts built to be a floating gun platform with 100 cannon of different calibers arranged on three decks.
As fate would have it in 1758, the same year of Lord Nelson's birth the Board of Admiralty ordered twelve new ships of the line, among them a 'first-rate' ship with 100 guns, to be named Victory.
