H M Frigate Unicorn – Installation of textile weather covering – Mon/Tue 12/13 Dec 05
Installation of the first section of Unicorn's new weather covering will start on Monday 12 December 2005, when the trusses for an innovative anticlastic textile covering will be assembled on the quayside by Victoria Dock.
A Scottish company, Tensarc Ltd, based in Stirling, has developed a design for an innovative textile construction which would mimic the sails Unicorn never saw, and almost completely protect the ship for an estimated cost of £70,000 for a ten year life.
The fabric panels will give Unicorn a very different external appearance for the first time in many years, emphasising her rapidly deteriorating condition and highlighting the urgent need for funding to secure the ship's long term future
Significant support for the first section of this structure, covering the forward part of the ship, has been received from the Clothworkers Corporation, and it is particularly appropriate that this textile project should be started in 2005, the bicentenary of the Battle of Trafalgar, and in Dundee, where most of the Royal Navy's sail canvas for ships at the battle was woven.
The first trusses for the anticlastic panels are planned to be lifted aboard by crane on Tuesday around 1200.
Urgent help needed: Unicorn – a ship at risk!
HMS Unicorn was launched at Chatham in 1824 as a 46 gun sailing frigate for the Royal Navy. She is now the World's last intact warship from the days of sail, one of a handful of the oldest ships in the world, and Scotland's only representative of the sailing navy.
She is a major (and the most senior!) part of the Dundee maritime heritage collection, and her significance is recognised by her inclusion within the National Historic Ships Committee ‘Core Collection'.
A sailing frigate was a powerful cruising vessel, heavily armed, fast and a favourite command in Nelson's time, and Unicorn would have been one of the elite ships of the fleet in her day. However, she was built shortly after the great sea campaign against Napoleon, as part of a programme for re-equipping a battle-weary Royal Navy. This was the start of a long period of peace and she was not required for immediate service: she was not rigged, but instead her hull was roofed over and she was put into reserve.
Rain water is the great enemy of wooden ships, salt water being mildly preservative, and this method of roofing was the standard “mothballing” practice of the day. Unicorn remained under cover her entire working life, spending most of her time as a reserve training ship in Dundee, and the roof which now covers Unicorn's upper deck is believed to be the same one which was fitted immediately after her launch. Because of this continuous protection, Unicorn is considered to be the best preserved of all historic wooden ships in the world from her era.
Unicorn: a ship at risk!
Unicorn has been surviving in Dundee on very inadequate funding for a number of years, and although outwardly little has changed, after 181 years afloat she is now suffering badly from the ravages of time. Concern is such that she has been placed on the National Historic Ships Committee ‘Vessel At Risk' list, but even so time is slipping by while accelerating decay threatens one of the ship's most extraordinary qualities, her authenticity, and even her ultimate survival.
At the moment Unicorn is remarkably complete, but cannot remain so indefinitely. A few more years without adequate funding will result in irreparable damage.
Dundee waterfront or Chatham dockyard?
Where should Unicorn belong?
As the plans for the redevelopment of the Dundee Waterfront emerge, it is vitally important that Unicorn's place is clearly recognized within the overall scheme, and that a positive relationship between Unicorn and Discovery is identified and developed.
Ships are essentially nomadic and rarely have ‘homes', indeed their whole purpose is to travel. So when the time comes for a working ship to retire and enter a preservation regime, there may be no obvious final site for her, and such ships are often returned to their place of building, hence Discovery's return to Dundee in 1986, for the first time since her launch in 1902.
Unicorn, on the other hand, is most unusual amongst big ships in having a ‘home'. She spent her entire working life in one port, Dundee, and has now been here 130 years! She had already been here 30 years when Discovery was launched, and she is now firmly embedded in Dundee's social and maritime history.
Tearing her from her roots would be as inappropriate as returning HMS Victory from her berth in Portsmouth to her building place at Chatham.
Yet the threat that Unicorn may be returned to her birthplace at Chatham is no idle one: historic ships are regularly transported around the globe on self-propelled submersible barges. Unicorn's service life has been in Dundee, all her social history and service associations are here, but there is a need for a real local and Scottish commitment at the highest level if she is to remain here.
The Unicorn of Scotland
Unicorns are the heraldic supporters of the Scottish Royal Arms, and an earlier Unicorn was the flagship of the old Scots navy. There could be few more appropriate ships to preserve in Scotland than H.M.Frigate Unicorn.
Unicorn is the oldest British-built ship afloat, and is the only representative of the Sailing Navy in Scotland.
Contact details:
Roderick Stewart
01382-320250 / 07703-192550
wrs@frigateunicorn.org