The Wreck of the Mary Rose Is Raised

On 11 October 1982, maritime salvors raised the surviving starboard hull of the Mary Rose from the seabed of the Solent, the strait separating the Isle of Wight from the English mainland. The operation, orchestrated by the Mary Rose Trust, concluded a recovery effort that had developed steadily since the wreck was relocated in 1971. Having foundered 437 years earlier during an engagement against a French invasion fleet on 19 July 1545, the warship emerged into open air as one of the most demanding maritime salvage projects ever conducted, marking a major turning point in modern nautical archaeology.

The Mary Rose was commissioned during the early naval buildup of Henry VIII. She was built at Portsmouth in 1510 and 1511, with the earliest reference to her construction dating from January 1510. Built as a carvel-planked carrack with high forecastles and aftercastles, she formed a core component of the permanent Navy Royal. Early records praised her speed and agility under sail, but a substantial rebuild in 1536 increased her capacity to roughly 700 tons. This refit incorporated an additional tier of carriage-mounted broadside ordnance, cutting watertight gunports into the hull closer to the waterline. When she sank abruptly off Spithead in 1545, conflicting accounts left the disaster without a definitive single explanation, with theories pointing to stability compromises, open gunports, or handling errors.