HMS Victory Officers Quarters
Discussion
I'm planning to decorate a Georgian property along the lines of HMS Victory's colour schemes and decor.
The house mirrors the ship in many ways.
My question to you is about the Officers Quarters flooring.
It's a checkerboard design but is the checkerboard painted directly onto the hard flooring or is it sailcloth which has been painted and laid over the wood flooring.
To me, it looks like painted sailcloth and it's a long time since I last visited the ship so I can't be sure.
Has anyone been recently or does anyone know more about this?
RGG said:
I'm planning to decorate a Georgian property along the lines of HMS Victory's colour schemes and decor.
The house mirrors the ship in many ways.
My question to you is about the Officers Quarters flooring.
It's a checkerboard design but is the checkerboard painted directly onto the hard flooring or is it sailcloth which has been painted and laid over the wood flooring.
To me, it looks like painted sailcloth and it's a long time since I last visited the ship so I can't be sure.
Has anyone been recently or does anyone know more about this?
I can't speak to what the floor material of the ship as presented today is - it's been a good few years since I was last aboard - but the historically accurate one, and what would have been place in service - is painted cloth. Usually a painted oilcloth rather than sail canvas. Think of it as a precursor to linoleum. It would be rolled up and stored when the ship cleared for action, along with all the wardroom cabin partitions and furnishings. The house mirrors the ship in many ways.
My question to you is about the Officers Quarters flooring.
It's a checkerboard design but is the checkerboard painted directly onto the hard flooring or is it sailcloth which has been painted and laid over the wood flooring.
To me, it looks like painted sailcloth and it's a long time since I last visited the ship so I can't be sure.
Has anyone been recently or does anyone know more about this?
Actually very appropriate for your Georgian house, as many houses on dry land had floors in hallways, dining rooms etc. of painted oilcloth. True marble or stone tile floors were extremely expensive - oilcloth could be painted to be a very convincing evocation, was warmer on the feet in cold weather and could be swapped with changing fashion trends.
Edited by 2xChevrons on Sunday 2nd November 10:31
You could ask the museum: https://www.nmrn.org.uk/contact-us
Look forward to seeing some photos when complete!
Look forward to seeing some photos when complete!
Every day’s a school day! A quick Google brings this up Oil cloth and it’s uses, who knew!
OutInTheShed said:
I might be thinking of a different ship, but key feature that springs to mind is the deck being on a slope...
Very few ships, right to the modern day, will have perfectly level decks. They'll all have at least some degree of sheer (sloping up at each end) and camber (sloping down towards the sides). It's part of design that gives them the desired sea keeping, buoyancy, handling and sailing qualities. Victory 'as drawn' would feature prominent sheer fore and aft, so in the wardroom and other bits of 'officer country' the slope would have been quite pronounced. The camber would be key to ensuring water would run to the sides and into the bilges, even on the decks that were enclosed.
When you add in the inevitable differences between and design and reality for building wooden ships, the structural shifts and settling in service and especially the effects of a century out of the water, it's not surprising that the whole ship is a bit crazy dimensionally.
Before the new hydraulic support system was installed (which effectively lets the ship 'float' in her dry dock), scans and surveys showed that Victory was being crushed under her own weight to an alarming degree. The entire lower hull was pancaking downwards and outwards like an underbaked blob of dough. Which was partly why she leaked rainwater to such a bad degree and also why the took the topmasts, spars and a lot of the running rigging off.
Simpo Two said:
2xChevrons said:
and also why the took the topmasts, spars and a lot of the running rigging off.
I thought masts ran down to the keel - if so they wouldn't contribute to the squashing.HMS Warrior is the wrong era but well worth touring while you're there too.
Both ships decors and living quarters layouts are totally agreeable to me.
I love the simplicity of design and layout and also the authentic Georgian colours which were much brighter than the "in vogue" dark colour hues usually associated with the Georgian period.
It's pretty clear but a bit disappointing that the HMS Victory floor covering is indeed oil cloth ( Thanks 2XChevrons for the distinction between oil and sail) and not painted directly onto the floor which makes it much harder to replicate.
Not impossible but more difficult.
As a slight aside, if Hardy only knew how iconic his decor would become over 150 years later ( Baby blue / checkerboard / Gulf racing colours // Motor Racing)
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