. ' IMPLACABLE ' COMES HOME
SHE came in early upon a still morning, stealing • along like a wraith in the wake of the tug, beneath the low hills of Falmouth harbour, illumined for a moment as she crossed the faint gold path made by the reflection of the veiled sun, and passing again into the haze. The shimmering gold path stretched from the Bide of the Foudroyant ' (ex-' Trincomalee') frigate, right across the dim water, joining for a moment the last frigate and the last two-decker line-of-battle ship of the old Sailing Navy, the ' Implacable.'
Foudroyant ' belongs to Mr. G. Wheatly Cobb, who for thirty years has trained in her boys for the sea.
Implacable ' is lent to Mr. Cobb for the purposes of a holiday training ship for boys. She fought at. Trafalgar as the Duguay-Trouin,' exchanging shots with H.M.S.
Victory,' and four days after the battle she was captured by Sir Richard Strachan, and renamed Implacable.' She carried the golden cock at her masthead as cock ship of the Mediterranean Fleet ; saw war service in the Baltic under Captain Byam Martin, and retired from active service as a training hulk at Devonport. 'Mr. Wheatly Cobb saved her from destruction. She completes the trio unique in the world of Victory,' -` Implacable,' Foudroyant,' representing the three .classes of the ships of war of the Old Navy.
On Wednesday, September 1st, she was towed to Falmouth, after having been repaired at Devonport, the cost of making her weatherproof being defrayed by Mr. Cobb and some generous friends, in response to the appeal issued by Lord Beatty. Nine months previously she was towed into Devonport, a weatherworn and broken hull above water, though sound below, where her huge oak timbers are iron-hard. She returned riding the waters sound and trim and majestic, new-coppered, her main-deck and sides renewed, fit to last another hundred years.
The money subscribed in response to Lord Beatty's appeal is nearly expended, and much costly equipment and interior repair remain to be accomplished. It is hoped that all those who value a great national monument, which is also a superb example of naval architecture, and also those who understand how admirable a training and how felicitous an holiday a fortnight's course on board a wooden ship of the Royal Navy would be, will send their contributions, marked Committee of Implacable' Fund, to Sir Vincent Baddeley, Implacable ' Fund, Midland Bank, Westminster Branch, Wesleyan Hall, London, S.W. 1.
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