Indeed, Ted & Kevin. A half-remembered bit from a course longer ago than I care to think about. Could have sworn I read somewhere that it was an intentional sinking... ah well. Senility strikes once again.

HuwG - Royal George was indeed the one I was thinking of. I'll have to dig out which dusty old book I read about her in.

As for the Mary Rose, that was an "oops". I think the Vasa is a better example of "Hmmmm, maybe we should not do it this way." Lovely state of the art ship - huge, massive, impressive to look at and nearly as sea-worthy as a brick. The original plan was modified after her construction was well under way, to make her longer and taller. Added more cannon to the taller hull, and voila! A disaster waiting to happen!

Her first excursion out, banners flying, ports all open displaying her nice shiny new cannons, band playing and a slight gust gave her a slight heel - and she kept right on going... the too-tall upperworks (for her narrow beam) in conjunction with too tall of masts (ditto, but she sure did look good), meant that the couple of degrees pitch from the wind increased by a gust to several degrees, set the lower gun-deck awash and that was that. Kind of put a damper on the King's party that night.

I figure the captain should have stuck to polishing the handles on the big front door.

Pete