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Portsmouth

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in April 2014: HMS Victory's gun deck, HMS Warrior at her berth, and a walk through the submarine HMS Alliance in Gosport.

April 2014, and a day in Portsmouth built entirely around ships: the Historic Dockyard on one side of the harbour, a submarine on the other, and the Spinnaker Tower keeping watch over the lot.

The white sail-shaped Spinnaker Tower rising over the Portsmouth waterfront, seen from out on the harbour with masts of historic ships to the left
Portsmouth from the water, the Spinnaker Tower doing its full-sail impression. The masts of the historic fleet poke up on the left.

The Historic Dockyard

The headline act is HMS Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, sitting in her dry dock looking freshly painted and faintly unimpressed by the centuries.

HMS Victory in dry dock at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, three masts rigged and hull painted in black and yellow bands
HMS Victory, all three masts up and every line in place. The dockyard buildings behind look small by comparison.
The stern of HMS Victory with the name VICTORY painted in gold letters beneath rows of gallery windows
The stern, in case there was any doubt about whose ship this is.
A gun deck aboard HMS Victory with a row of black cannon on wooden carriages, hammocks and rigging overhead and numbered wooden mess buckets hanging in the foreground
A gun deck of the Victory: cannon by the dozen, mess buckets numbered, headroom strictly optional.
The black-hulled three-masted warship HMS Warrior moored at her jetty in Portsmouth harbour, modern tower blocks behind
HMS Warrior at her berth, iron hull and three masts holding their own against the modern skyline.
Inga in an orange jacket with a camera and guide leaflet standing in a white panelled doorway below decks, a large double ship's wheel and racks of rifles behind her
Below decks, guide leaflet in hand. Behind the door: a double ship's wheel and a tidy rack of rifles.

Across the water: HMS Alliance

Over in Gosport, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum lets you walk the submarine HMS Alliance from one end to the other, and it is even less roomy than the Victory.

The long dark hull of the submarine HMS Alliance raised on supports beside the water at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum in Gosport, with an access staircase leading aboard
HMS Alliance, all of her out of the water at once. Submarines are much bigger when you can see the whole thing.
Torpedo tubes inside the submarine HMS Alliance seen through an oval hatchway, one tube labelled LOADED and another labelled FLOODED
The torpedo room, tubes labelled LOADED and FLOODED. We chose to take both labels as historical.
The narrow engine room of HMS Alliance, banks of machinery and dials either side of a walkway with a visitor at the far end
The engine room: two engines, one narrow gap between them, and dials wherever a dial would fit.
Inga in an orange jacket standing at a hatch doorway in the machinery-lined interior of the submarine HMS Alliance
Inga framed by pipework. Every doorway on a submarine doubles as a fitness test.
A panel of brass pressure gauges with copper piping inside the submarine HMS Alliance, one labelled S/Charge Lub Oil Press
Brass gauges and copper pipe, polished like the crew just stepped out.
A brass engine telegraph on HMS Alliance made by Teleflex Products Ltd London, its red handle pointing among settings for slow, half and full ahead and astern
The engine telegraph, still offering everything from Slow to Full in both directions. Made in London, worked everywhere else.

A whole day of climbing through hatches and under beams, and not a dull deck in it. For sea air without the rivets, the Isle of Wight is just across the Solent.