HMS Warrior
HMS Warrior is one of the world's most significant historic warships, launched in 1860, she was the largest, fastest and most powerful warship of her day “The Pride of Queen Victoria’s Fleet”. After a major renovation at Hartlepool she arrived in Portsmouth in 1987 and now serves as a floating museum and visitor attraction in Portsmouth Dockyard.
Being such an Iconic Royal Navy ship, we felt very fortunate to be given the opportunity to assist in the HMS Warrior conservation work, which will ensure that future generations will benefit from her legacy.
The project spanned a period of two years, included producing two Anchors entirely constructed from GRP and GRP Hammock Stowage’s for the ship.
We were given the remains of the replica Anchors which had been part of the restoration project started in 1979 on HMS Warrior, whilst docked in Hartlepool. They were made of timber which had completely rotten and broken into pieces.
We used the pieces of the Anchor to take measurements and partial moulds from, to construct the moulds for the new fully GRP Anchor.
A new pattern was constructed of the shaft as the Hartlepool's replica was too rotten to use, this was made using polystyrene blocks carved to an elliptical shape and attached to a aluminium box section shaft. Then coated with GRP and painted with a texture to replicate an iron finish.
The Stock of the Anchor was manufactured from a new GRP mould and timber pattern, as again the Hartlepool replica was not in a suitable condition to mould from. Strips of GRP were then bonded around the Stock to replicate the metal hoops that would have been attached to the original Anchor.
The Shackle of the Anchor was measured and a 3D CAD Model was produced by our design team and then sent to our 3D printer. The 3D Prints were then bonded together to form a pattern to manufacture a mould to produce the GRP Shackle.
As the Anchors were so large, they would have been difficult to transport to site from our factory, so they were manufactured in sections and then assembled on the dockside.
The two Anchors now hang on the bow of HMS Warrior, the port Anchor, shown here known as the small bower and on the starboard side known as the best bower. HMS Warrior had originally nine anchors, these two were originally made from forged iron and weighing in at 5.6 tons which is considerably heavier than the new lighter weight GRP replacements.
Due to weathering and rot of the Bulwarks, extensive refurbishment has been carried out on HMS Warrior’s upper deck.
From the Hammock Stowage drawings we produced timber patterns with a woodgrain finish, which enabled us to produce a multi piece mould with the aid of our GRP Mould Clamps. Using the Mould Clamps enabled us to precisely locate our mould sections, giving perfect alignment and ease of the multi piece mould assembly.
A standard size GRP Moulding was produced for the majority of the project, however, there were a number of GRP Hammock Stowages that required modification to fit around the newly renovated gunnels to accommodate the curvature of the Bow and the mast rigging.
Several GRP Hammock Stowages were bonded together and modified to produce a port, red and starboard, green detail to a allow for the fitting of navigation lanterns.
The purpose of the Hammock Stowages was to store the sailors hammocks, this activity was carried out each morning but they also served as a life preserver or could protect against splinters in the heat of battle.