HMS Victory

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HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate wooden sailing ship of the line, best known for her role as Admiral Horatio Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. With 248 years of service as of 2026, she is the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission. She was ordered for the Royal Navy in 1758, during the Seven Years' War, and laid down in 1759. A series of British naval victories meant there was no urgency to complete the ship and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February 1763 meant that when Victory was finally floated out in 1765, she was placed in ordinary. Victory was first commissioned in March 1778 during the American Revolutionary War, seeing action at the First Battle of Ushant in 1778, shortly after France had openly declared her support for Britain's rebel colonies in North America, and the Second Battle of Ushant in 1781. The following year, Victory took part in the relief of Gibraltar and the Battle of Cape Spartel before hostilities ended in 1783 and she...

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