Specialist team works through night to remove HMS Victory's masts for conservation project 

Across three nights a 30-strong specialist team using a 750-tonne crane are carefully removing the remaining masts of HMS Victory as part of a major £42m conservation project.

After months of meticulous planning, work has began to move the warship's foremast (front), mizzen (rear) and bowsprit (bow), which are being lowered and laid near the ship ready to be restored at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

The technical operation requires great power to lift the 15-tonne masts, but also serious precision to avoid damaging the delicate fabric of Nelson's 18th-century Battle of Trafalgar flagship

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Once all the masts are down, a scaffolding structure will enclose the vessel and remain in place until the conservation work is completed in 2033.

It is the latest phase of the 10-year scheme, dubbed The Big Repair, that marks the 100th anniversary of the ship being brought into Portsmouth's dry dock.

Patrizia Pierazzo, HMS Victory deputy project director, said: "Tonight was a great start, the team worked through some initial challenges with the mast wedges.

"But overall, the lift process was undertaken safely, and we now have the foremast securely removed from the ship."

The removals come after the main mast was taken down in 2021.

Andrew Baines, executive director of museum operations for the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN), said: "This is a key moment for The Big Repair project, being the first time Victory will have been without all her masts since the early 1890s.

"Our team has planned this step in meticulous detail but we still have to work around factors like the weather.

"That's why we will carry out the lifts overnight, so we can work safely and without interruption for several hours at a time."

He added: "The operation itself will be impressive with a 750-tonne crane rigged on site for a week.

"We have learned a huge amount from the removal of main lower mast in 2021 and once all masts are removed and safely stored, we can begin the critical work of conserving them before their eventual return to the ship in 2033."

Lead rigger Stuart Sheldon said: "HMS Victory matters to people in a way few objects do. That brings real pressure and it should.

"This lift is complex and it needs absolute precision. Putting the plan into action on the night will be a career highlight for the whole team."

HMS Victory, which is the world's oldest commissioned warship, was Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar and it was on the ship's quarterdeck that he was fatally shot by a French sniper on 21 October 1805.

Victory was first floated out at Chatham in 1765 but by the 1920s was in poor condition and moved to dry dock in Portsmouth, Hampshire, in 1922.