No. 1 Dock

No. 1 Dock. . , HMS M.33’s permanent home is No. 1 Dock, part of the complex of six docks surrounding the Great Ship Basin, one of the great legacies from the golden age of sail. The Great Basin and the ‘Great Stone Dock’ (now No. 5 Dock) were begin in 1689 and then extended in the 1800s., No. 1 Dock opened in 1801, and operated until 1984. It received a direct hit during the Portsmouth Blitz of 1941, when a huge crater was blasted out of the southern wall. He repair work can still be seen, where the original stonework has been replaced with concrete., No. 1 Dock is 84m long and 8.3m deep , everything you see had to be dug out using picks and shovels. , In 1802, the world’s first caisson (floating dam) was installed at the basin entrance. It could be filled with water and sunk to form a watertight seal, allowing the docks to be used independently of the tides. When it had to be moved it was pumped free of water and refloated., ( photo captions ) , Above: This bomb crater was caused by a German bomb I March 1941. The same air raid destroyed the roof of the No. 10 Storehouse; one also fell into No. 2 Dock and damaged HMS Victory’s keel. , Left: When HMS M.33 came into the drydock, the dock gates were still in place. The solid wall you see today was built recently , M.33 will never go to sea again. , Above: this plan from 1849 shows No. 1 Dock still opening onto the sea. Other docks open into the Great Basin , No. 2 Dock is home to HMS Victory , No. 3 Dock to the Mary Rose.