HMS Victory is a gun first-rate wooden sailing ship of the line. With years of service as of , she is the world's oldest naval vessel still in commission. That year saw British victories at Quebec , Minden , Lagos and Quiberon Bay and these may have influenced the choice of name when it was selected in October the following year.
In particular, the action in Quiberon Bay had a profound effect on the course of the war; severely weakening the French Navy and shifting its focus away from the sea. There was therefore no urgency to complete the ship and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in February , meant that when Victory was finally floated out in , she was placed in ordinary. Victory was first commissioned in March during the American Revolutionary War , seeing action at the First Battle of Ushant in , shortly after France had openly declared her support for Britain's rebel colonies in North America , and the Second Battle of Ushant in After taking part in the relief of Gibraltar in , Victory , and the fleet she was sailing with, encountered a combined Spanish and French force at the Battle of Cape Spartel.
Much of the shot from the allied ships fell short and the British, with orders to return to the English Channel , did not bother to reply. This was her last action of the war; hostilities ended in and Victory was placed in ordinary once more. In , Victory was ordered to be fitted for sea following a revolt in the Netherlands but the threat had subsided before the work had been completed. She was ready for the Nootka Crisis and Russian Armament in but both events were settled before she was called into action.
When Admiral Horatio Nelson was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet in , he hoisted his flag aboard Victory and in took her into action at the Battle of Trafalgar. She served as a harbour ship from until , when she was placed in dry dock at Portsmouth , England. Here she was repaired and is now maintained as a museum ship. In December , the British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Elder , requested the building of 12 ships and within a matter of days, orders were received at Chatham Dockyard to start work on a first-rate ship-of-the-line as soon as a dry dock was available.
Sir Thomas Slade , naval architect and Surveyor of the Navy was selected to design the ship, the lines of which were copied from HMS Royal George of guns, built at Woolwich Dockyard three years earlier.
