Great British Ships Series 1

Rob discovers the incredible story of HMS Victory – Admiral Nelson’s personal flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. When Victory was built over forty years previously, she was the largest warship in the world with firepower equivalent to a whole army on land. Yet Rob discovers that this titan of the seas was very nearly scrapped long before the battle that would ultimately seal her place in history.

Climbing on board this vast ship, Rob discovers the extraordinary feats of engineering behind Victory’s construction – from the 6000 oaks felled for her planking, to the 27 miles of rope used for her rigging. Yet if Victory was exceptional, then so too was her most famous captain, Nelson – a celebrity renowned as much for a scandalous ménage-à-trois as for his dazzling military leadership. At Trafalgar, Nelson used Victory’s formidable power to spearhead a brutal new style of naval combat – yet came to pay the ultimate price at the hour of his greatest triumph.

Finally, Rob explores Victory’s extraordinary survival into the modern era. Today, her dedicated crew of 17 naval officers bear witness to the fact that this great ship isn’t simply a monument to Britain’s maritime past, but also the world’s oldest, fully commissioned warship.

Rob Bell investigates the sinking of the Mary Rose - Henry VIII’s great warship which went down nearly five centuries ago, killing more than four hundred men. Over the years, a host of theories have emerged to explain the disaster, including accounts blaming enemy fire, the ship’s builders, an unruly crew, an inexperienced captain and even King Henry VIII himself. But who was really responsible?

Rob gathers evidence from the marine archaeologists who excavated this extraordinary shipwreck and learns what secrets they discovered on the seabed. He also delves into the Admiralty’s archives to uncover the Mary Rose’s forgotten past as the very first flagship of the Royal Navy.  And he comes face to face with the skeletons of crew members who died at their posts.

Along the way, he tries his hand firing the pioneering guns used by the Mary Rose’s crew and he examines these Tudor sailors’ personal possessions - found amongst an astonishing haul of over 19,000 objects recovered from the wreck site.

Ultimately, he learns that the Mary Rose is far more than just an intriguing mystery, she’s also a unique Tudor time capsule offering an unprecedented insight into our ancestor’s lives. Today, the ship is also a miracle of preservation - discovered and raising during the most complex underwater dig ever attempted.

Rob explores the extraordinary story of the Golden Hind – the personal ship of England’s most notorious pirate, Sir Francis Drake. Bound on a secret mission to plunder Spanish ships in the Pacific, the voyage of this surprisingly modest vessel was packed with adventure: from witchcraft and attempted mutiny, to the supreme triumph of her most famous achievement - becoming the first English ship to sail around the world.

Rob climbs aboard the replica Golden Hind on London’s South Bank to get to grips with the human stories behind this remarkable vessel. He samples weevil-ridden sailors’ rations, gets a crash course in Tudor firearms and learns how a bitter betrayal would force Drake to execute one of his closest friends. And when it came to taking on formidable Spanish galleons, Rob learns how Drake put the Golden Hind’s small size to good use – using stealth and cunning to rob untold riches from unsuspecting enemy ships.

Most remarkably, Rob learns how Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe was not only an accident, but also initially a state secret that he might have taken to the grave – had it not been for the surprise intervention of Queen Elizabeth herself.

Rob Bell explores the extraordinary tea clipper, Cutty Sark – a ship that endured drunken captains and murderous crews, inspired a whisky, and survived the coming of the steam age, only to face her greatest ordeal - a devastating fire that ripped through her hull one night in 2007. Impossibly, the wooden ship survived the blaze.  But how?

 One of the most glamorous ships of her day, Cutty Sark made her name racing precious cargoes of tea from Shanghai to London. Rob clambers aboard to experience first-hand the beauty and superior design of this perfect sailing ship. He delves into the ship’s tragic past – her vagabond years of ‘tramping’, mistreated by her captains and deserted by her crews. He uncovers the Cutty Sark’s unlikely link to Prohibition, and a famous brand of whisky. And he discovers how, on the night of that terrible fire, the ship was saved by a remarkable piece of good luck.

Rob uncovers the extraordinary story behind what was once the longest passenger ship in the world – the SS Great Britain. Designed by Victorian engineering genius, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, this vast vessel rewrote the ship-building rulebook, pioneering innovations still found on almost all modern ships.

Rob learns how the origins of the SS Great Britain lay in Brunel’s off-the-cuff boast to extend his famous Great Western Railway ‘from Bristol to New York’. Yet the renowned inventor soon had his work cut out to convince both the public and his financial backers that his revolutionary combination of an iron hull and a screw propeller would work. Climbing to the very top her rigging, Rob learns how the ship’s early years were plagued by disaster – from running aground on the coast of Ireland, to nearly capsizing in a violent storm. The Great Britain finally found success thanks to the Australian gold rush – today, 250,000 Australians can trace their direct ancestors to passengers on Brunel’s legendary steam ship. From the gilded grandeur of the first-class dining room, to the cramped bunks of the third class sleeping quarters, Rob discovers what life was like on board for the thousands who set sail on this record-breaking ship.

Rob Bell delves into the fascinating history of the WW2 cruiser, HMS Belfast – a ship that played a critical role in some of the most dramatic battles of World War 2, and whose daring deeds helped bring down the Nazis. 

HMS Belfast is the sole survivor of the British ships that bombarded the Normandy coast on D-Day. Rob clambers aboard the immaculately-preserved warship – experiencing at first-hand the awesome power of Belfast’s guns… by firing one.  He hears the testimony of a veteran who was on board Belfast at the very moment she was blown up by the Nazi’s new secret weapon – a magnetic mine. He gets a taste of life on board, from the daily tot of rum, to the hammocks and officers’ cabins – exploring how the class divide played out among the officers and seamen who lived and fought side by side. And Rob re-lives the tactical brilliance of the Battle of North Cape – an extraordinary act of courage that saw Belfast take on the pride of the German Navy, the mighty battleship Scharnhorst.