August 29, 1782, was a perfect summer’s morning on the Isle of Wight; the Solent was as flat as a millpond.
Anchored half-way between Portsmouth and Ryde was the Royal George, the largest warship in the world.
Launched in 1756, it had taken more than 1,600 acres of oak to build her.
She was now preparing to sail to Gibraltar once a vital repair was carried out on the hull below the waterline.
To do this, her master, Captain Waghorn decided to ‘heel’ or lean the ship over until the damaged area was clear of the sea, by the clumsy method of shifting some of the ship’s cannons and supplies to the opposite side of the ship.
At 7am, as the crew began the heeling.
There were roughly 1,800 people aboard, consisting of the 1,200 crew, and nearly 300 visiting relatives, while below decks there were workmen and 100 prostitutes who had spent a profitable night on board.
Within minutes, 800 of them would be dead.
The heeling went beyond the intended seven degrees, the cannons and supplies couldn’t be moved back quickly enough, and the huge ship slowly toppled over and sank, just its masts visible.
It was the biggest maritime disaster in British waters.
One of the crew told the subsequent court martial that the ship’s carpenter could see the ship was going too far and pleaded with the Lieutenant: “If you will, please sir, to right the ship.
“It is my duty to tell you she will not bear it any longer.”
The Lieutenant gave him short shrift: “If you think, sir, that you can manage the ship better than I can, you had better take command.”
Within minutes, the carpenter’s fears became reality. The ship slowly capsized, and the sea flowed in through the gunports which, unaccountably, had not been locked.
More than 400 bodies were recovered that day, but many bodies were still floating eight to ten days later, a commentator reporting: ‘bodies would come up, 30 or 40 nearly at a time.
“They would rise up so suddenly as to frighten anyone.
“The watermen took from them their buckles, money and watches, and then made fast a rope to their heels and towed them to land.
“If they land at Portsmouth they are threatened to bury them at their own expense.
“Ten days later at least 100 were still floating on the water, and the watermen durst not take them up, on account of the above threat.”
Despite evidence of bad practice on the part of Waghorn and his lieutenant, the subsequent court martial found that the accident was not caused by shifting tons of cargo and cannons to one side of the ship allowing the ship to overbalance.
Instead, their Lordships claimed the ship’s hull had rotted out and gave way at the precise moment the ship rolled over, declaring: “Having heard the narrative of Captain Waghorn, and having deliberately considered the same, it appears to the court that the ship was not over-heeled.
“It also appears that the captain, officers and ship’s company be acquitted of all blame.”
The verdict was branded a whitewash, one commentator remarking: “Captain Waghorn was tried by a court martial and acquitted.
“God knows then who the blame ought to light on, for blame there must have been somewhere, for never was a ship lost in so strange and unaccountable a manner.”
To make sure no-one could ever challenge the verdict, their Lordships banned all diving to the wreck for the next 50 years.
In July 1921, County Press columnist Vectensis reported: "Many of the bodies were washed ashore at Ryde and were buried in a mass grave that stretched along the beach on the Duver, a low piece of ground, near the Castle, where the graves were still to be seen in 1841."
The hillocks wore away, and the land was reclaimed in Victorian times to extend the Esplanade and allow the building of The Strand.
The Royal George wreck was blown up twice in the early 1800s, and a dive in 1990 found no trace of the wreckage.
Today, a Royal George Memorial Garden can be found at the eastern end of The Strand.
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