Yesterday I happened to come across a video on YouTube about the museum ship HMS Unicorn. Now usually the Napoleonic period of military history isn't my thing, but as it's Saturday 18th June and so is Waterloo Day a post on the subject seems fitting!

Revisiting An Old Friend...

Joking aside, the real reason that this video caught my eye is because I am from Dundee, the home of HMS Unicorn and seeing the ship again brought back many very happy memories. Sadly, when I was growing up in the 1960s and 70s there wasn't a whole lot of interest in the Unicorn (we were in the middle of a devastating recession) and the ship was more or less being left to rot!

HMS Unicorn
Above: Recent photo of the Unicorn, and it has seen investment and xxx
Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(1824)

My friends and I used to like exploring the harbour, in the 1970s there was still some vestiges on international trade - barely - and it was a intriguing playground to teenage miscreants. And in among the timber yards and junk piles of maritime detritus was the floating carcass of the neglected HMS Unicorn.

To be honest, the people of Dundee either largely ignored the tattered hulk or had forgotten about it and it's truly amazing that it survived this indifference...But it did.

HMS Unicorn - One of the Six Oldest Ships in the World

This video gave me a renewed respect and interest in the ship I overlooked when I was younger and the wife and I fully intend to make this a part of our visit to Dundee next year.

Unicorn figurehead below the bowsprit
Source: Yottanesia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Unicorn_(1824)

HMS Pomone - Leda-class frigate
Above: HMS Pomone - Leda-class frigate. This is what HMS Unicorn would
have looked like had she not been moth-balled (without masts) after the
Napoleonic War. Source: Wikipedia. Artist: Thomas Goldsworthy Dutto.

You can find out more about the Unicorn here:

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