Our treasure ship

By Paul Delplanque - Gazette Live

She is a treasure on our doorstep and one of which we should be justly proud.

Today HMS Trincomalee is the centrepiece of the Historic Quay at Hartlepool but her journey there has without doubt been an eventful one.

She caught fire three times, she very nearly sank at her moorings and then after all the hard work to complete her, she was snubbed by historical ship experts in London for not being British enough !

HMS Trincomalee is the oldest British warship afloat, Nelson's flagship HMS Victory is 52 years older but that grand old ship is in dry dock in Portsmouth.

The oldest commissioned warship afloat is the USS Constitution, but that veteran of the war of 1812 is only 20 years older than HMS Trincomalee. So its clear that HMS Trincomalee is something special, so how come she ended up here in our area ? Remember When decided to take a look at what went on.

The news that the ship would be coming to Hartlepool was first announced in the Evening Gazette in April 1987. The reason given was due to the fantastic work that had been achieved in Hartlepool with HMS Warrior the Victorian battleship, which was just completing its restoration at the time.

A highly skilled local team had been working on HMS Warrior and the same team was to be retained for work on the new project.

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