page_title: HMS Victoria (1887)
section_title: Admiralty technical report
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Victoria (1887) / The collision / Admiralty technical report
caption_attribution_description: English: Plan drawings of HMS Victoria (1887) included as evidence at the court-matial investigation into her sinking and published together with the transcript proceedings by HMSO, London, 1893.
context_page_description: HMS Victoria was the lead ship in her class of two battleships of the Royal Navy. On 22 June 1893, she collided with HMS Camperdown near Tripoli, Lebanon during manoeuvres and quickly sank, killing 358 crew members, including the commander of the British Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon. One of the survivors was executive officer John Jellicoe, later commander-in-chief of the British Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland.
context_section_description: In September 1893 a report was published by the Director of Naval Construction, W. H. White, on how the ship had sunk, and it was submitted to parliament in November. It combined evidence from the survivors with the known design details of the ship. Camperdown struck approximately 65 ft (20 m) from the stem of Victoria at an angle of approximately 80°, just ahead of one of the main transverse bulkheads. Camperdown was travelling at about 6 kn (6.9 mph; 11 km/h), so the blow roughly equated with the energy of a shell from one of the 12 in (300 mm) guns then in service, the 45-ton breech-loading rifle (BLR). It pushed Victoria's bow sideways 60–70 ft (18–21 m). Camperdown was most probably held back from driving further into Victoria by coming up against the protective armoured deck running across Victoria below water level. Camperdown's stem penetrated approximately 6 ft (1.8 m) into Victoria's side, while the underwater ram penetrated about 9 ft (2.7 m), 12 ft (3.7 m) below water level. Had Camperdown been travelling more slowly, then it was likely the damage from her stem would have been lessened, but the underwater ram might instead have torn a hole along Victoria's relatively thin lower plating as she continued to move forward. A similar thing had happened in a collision between the German warships SMS König Wilhelm and Großer Kurfürst, causing the latter to sink. This did not happen because the two ships became locked together, although the momentum caused Camperdown to rotate relative to Victoria, tearing the hole wider.
  After Camperdown disengaged, the initial inflow of water was limited not by the size of the hole but by the rate at which water could flow out of the immediately affected compartments into adjacent ones. It was noted that there had been insufficient time to close watertight doors, a process which took three or four minutes even when men were on duty and already prepared. The collision was followed by steady sinking of the bow and increasing list to starboard for about 10 minutes, by which time the bow had sunk 23 ft (7.0 m) from its normal height. Approximately half the length of the ship was submerged and the tip of the port propellor was raised above water level instead of 11 ft (3.4 m) below. The ship was heeled over sideways by about 20°. There was then a sudden lurch to starboard and the ship turned over. This was ascribed to water reaching open ports and doors on the gun turret and sides of the ship, which now started to flood new compartments on the starboard side. The ship started to capsize, slowly at first but with increasing speed, accompanied by increasing noise audible on the nearby ships as anything loose fell towards the low side, worsening the process. The ship was still underway at this time trying to reach shore. This tended to force the bow down and more water into the ship, while the rudder jammed hard to starboard tended to increase the heel.
  It was estimated from survivors reports that initially twelve watertight compartments were affected, causing a buoyance loss of some 680 long tons (690 t) at the fore end of the ship, mostly concentrated below the level of the armoured deck. Water then spread to other areas, eventually rising to fill the space below the main deck. There were no significant longitudinal bulkheads in the affected areas, which might have had the effect of keeping water out of the port side and thereby accentuating the heel, but the water naturally flooded the holed side first causing the imbalance. No water entered the stokeholds or engine rooms. It was determined that had the gunports and doors at deck level been closed so that water was prevented from entering this way, then the ship would not have capsized. These doors would customarily be closed if the ship was travelling in a heavy sea, but were not part of normal procedure for closure in a collision. She might not have foundered at all, but this would have depended on whether various bulkhead doors had been closed or not, which was unclear. Had all doors been closed initially so that only the breached co
caption: Plan drawings of HMS Victoria
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