Replacing the Subs

[Cloud Cover]

I'd always heard it was he Danes and they'd started planting in the spring following Nelson's visit to Copenhagen..

I’d heard it was Canadians in Ottawa who spent 1.7Billion for reforestation and planted no trees, but pre- taxed the future lumber profits anyway.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

View attachment 90525

HMS Temeraire, last of the Ships of the Line that fought at Trafalgar being towed to the scrapyard by a filthy little steam tug in 1838.

98 guns, Second Rate Three Decker, complement of 738

Ordered 1790 - 9 December
Laid Down 1793
Launched 1798 - 11 September
Battle of Trafalgar 1805 - 21 October
Prison ship 1813–1819
Receiving ship 1820–1828
Victualling depot 1828–1836
Guard ship 1836–1838
Scrapped 1838

48 years of life
8 years to get her in the water
25 years as a hulk
15 years of service

HMS Temeraire (1798) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

She has a fascinating history.

...

HMS Victory, a 104 gun First Rate Three Decker,

Was ordered in July 1758 and laid down a year later in July 1759, the year of Minden, Quebec, Lagos, Pondicherry and Quiberon.
She was launched six years later in 1765, after the Seven Years war was concluded but she wasn't commissioned until 1778 for the American Revolution, 13 years later.
She fought from Ushant in 1778 to Trafalgar in 1805 - 27 years of service after waiting 20 years between being ordered and being commissioned.

She is still in service.

...

Point being. The Old RN and HM Governments weren't much better then than they are now.

After Waterloo all of those old ships of the line were laid up and left to rot before being decommissioned. The RN needed lots of frigates and sloops for its constabulary work suppressing the slavers.

...

By the time war broke out again in the 1850s the demand was for steamers.

...

Difficult predicting future requirements.

In a lot of these cases, a hull would get laid down, but if there was no war, there was no particular hurry to finish and commission the ship. Commissioned ships cost HM Govt money. Ships out of commission (essentially a hull with a roof over it) were cheap.

English shipyards could build ships of the line much faster if they needed to. They often chose not to.

 

[Cloud Cover]

In a lot of these cases, a hull would get laid down, but if there was no war, there was no particular hurry to finish and commission the ship. Commissioned ships cost HM Govt money. Ships out of commission (essentially a hull with a roof over it) were cheap.

English shipyards could build ships of the line much faster if they needed to. They often chose not to.

Recognizing, of course, how long it takes a water wheel powered lumber mill to saw a plank with rigid saw blades that were 1/4” thick. Hand sawyers had, by their tens of thousands, moved to North America.
And interestingly, during the US War of Independence, mills, forges and sawyers tools (along with the sawyers themselves) were often destroyed by the British, who previously relied on them to make planking and timbers for UK based warship and freighter construction.

 

[GK .Dundas]

Recognizing, of course, how long it takes a water wheel powered lumber mill to saw a plank with rigid saw blades that were 1/4” thick. Hand sawyers had, by their tens of thousands, moved to North America.
And interestingly, during the US War of Independence, mills, forges and sawyers tools (along with the sawyers themselves) were often destroyed by the British, who previously relied on them to make planking and timbers for UK based warship and freighter construction.

The loss of the American oak stocks was a real sore point for the RN in the years following the success of the American Revolution.