Warship relics go on show

Press, 12 July 1984, Page 34

Warship relics go on show

NZPA-AP Portsmouth, England Artefacts recovered from King Henry VIII’s flagship S Rose are at last on ly at a naval base in Portsmouth. Prince Charles officially opened the £BOO,OOO ($1.6 million) exhibition centre, which houses the best 1000 of about 14,000 artefacts found when the sixteenth century Tudor warship was raised from the seabed near Portsmouth in 1982. The artefacts include long bows, coins, and the oldest ship’s bell recovered from the seabed. The ship’s 32m hull rests on a steel cradle under a double-skinned aluminium dome on Portsmouth’s

waterfront. Its ancient timbers are preserved under a continuous spray of chilled water that keeps the relative humidity in the dome at 95 per cent.

The Prince, president of the Mary Rose Trust which funds the preservation work, led the three-year salvage effort and made nine dives to the wreckage. The most sophisticated warship of her day, the Mary Rose sank before Henry VIII’s eyes on July 19, 1545, taking the lives of all but 40 of her 700 crew who were sailing to fight the French Navy. Historians have never determined if she was hit by cannon or capsized because she was overloaded. •