Fate
Unlike the unfortunate Wellesley, Implacable survived the Second World War. Still, the Admiralty scuttled her by an explosive charge on 2 December 1949. A fireboat towed her to a spot east of the Isle of Wight and she sank into Saint Catherine's Deep, about five miles from Ventnor. A French man-of-war was in attendance to render honours. Implacable was by then the second oldest ship of the Navy after Victory, and there were heavy protests against her disposal. However, given the post-War austerity the British decided against the cost of her restoration, which was estimated at £150,000 with another £50,000 for re-rigging. In 1947 they had offered her to the French, who too declined to spend the money to turn her into a museum. Still, her figurehead and stern galleries were saved and are on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, while her capstan is on display at the maritime museum at Rochefort. Public reaction to the "criminal action against the maritime history of Britain" forced the government to support the preservation of Cutty Sark.
Read more about this topic: HMS Implacable (1805)
Famous quotes containing the word fate:
“In the small circle of pain within the skull
You still shall tramp and tread one endless round
Of thought, to justify your action to yourselves,
Weaving a fiction which unravels as you weave,
Pacing forever in the hell of make-believe
Which never is belief: this is your fate on earth
And we must think no further of you.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“So the old flute was doomed and its fate was pathetic,
‘Twas fastened and burned at the stake as heretic,
While the flames roared around it they heard a strange
noise—
‘Twas the old flute still whistling ‘The Protestant Boys’.”
—Unknown. The Old Orange Flute (l. 37–40)
“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)