HMS Victory — Copper-Bottom Hull Model, Handcrafted Wood | Admiral Line

Nelson's flagship built with a metal-sheathed bottom — the detail most Victory models skip, and the one that kept her fast enough to matter.

Below the waterline the hull is finished in metal plating laid in overlapping courses, the way copper sheets were nailed onto real hulls. Above it, standard Admiral Line construction: plank on frame in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany.

Construction

• Plank-on-frame hull with metal-sheathed bottom in laid, overlapping plates
• Three gun decks with cast cannon running both sides
• Three masts and bowsprit, complete hand-knotted standing and running rigging
• Hand-stitched linen sails on every yard
• Carved and gilded stern gallery, quarter galleries and figurehead
• Ship's boats, capstan, wheel, gratings, anchors and rudder
• Solid wood base and engraved brass nameplate
• Fully assembled

Why copper mattered

An unsheathed wooden hull fouls within months in warm water. Weed and barnacles cost knots; teredo worm eats the planking outright. Copper sheathing stopped both, and the Royal Navy's decision to copper the fleet from the 1770s onward was a genuine strategic advantage — British ships simply stayed at sea longer and sailed faster than their opponents. Victory was coppered in 1780.

The ship

A 104-gun first rate launched at Chatham in 1765. She led the British line at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 with Nelson aboard, and remains the oldest commissioned warship in the world.