HMS Implacable – which had survived the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 – was scuttled by an explosive charge off the Isle of Wight on 2nd December 1949.
The 154-year-old-warship was towed by a fireboat to a spot 5 miles from Ventnor and sunk in St Catherine’s Deep.
At the time of her sinking, she was the second oldest Royal Navy vessel after HMS Victory.
4 scuttling charges fired on board HMS Implacable somehow failed to destroy the ship. It had been calculated that she would take 20 minutes to sink beneath the surface of the sea, but she stayed afloat for 2 hours.
The scuttling charges blew holes beneath the water line, breaking her back, but her poop resolutely refused to sink, remaining high above the water.
At one point, the Portsmouth Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir Algernon Willis, who witnessed the scuttling, recommended that – given the Implacable’s initial reluctance to sink – an attempt should be made to tow her to shallow waters and beach her.
HMS Implacable remained afloat until 17:00, long after the accompanying warships had returned to Portsmouth. 2 tugs remained with her until she finally disappeared below the waves.
Implacable began her life in a French dockyard and exchanged shots with Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar before being captured by the Royal Navy.
She then spent the following half-century in active service before becoming a boys’ training ship in 1855. Amazingly, at the start of World War II, she returned to active service as a stores ship in Portsmouth.
Sadly, postwar austerity prevented her from being restored at the end of the conflict at a cost of £200,000 (£6million in today’s values). It was thought preferable to dispatch the grand old vessel with full military honours than for her to suffer the dishonour of rotting away to oblivion.
Although Implacable had been in the service of the Royal Navy for 144 years, her heart remained in France where she had been built as the 74-gun Duguay Trouin.
A few days after she had been sunk, she subsequently returned to the Calais area of France as floating wreckage, identified by carvings on the flotsam.
A contemporary news report of the sinking of the Implacable below:
Should have been preserved .