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When I was about twelve years old I crewed for a gentleman named Mr Mant from
Portchester who took care of a sixteen foot clinker built sailing dingy for Mrs Pound, who was the wife of Harry Pound the scrap metal merchant who had a very large scrap yard in those days at Paulsgrove
full of war surplus material.
Mr Mant was about seventy four years of age and had sailed on square rig sailing ships
in his youth, and was a very experienced sailor, and we would sail the dingy down to the Foudroyant which was moored near Camper & Nicholson's ship yard, next to the Gosport ferry terminal. We
would moor the dingy there for the day, and take one of the sailing cutters from the Foudroyant full of sea cadets out sailing for the day, and then return them to the Foudroyant, and sail the sixteen
foot dingy back to the scrap yard at Portchester where it was kept.
When I started my apprenticeship in Portsmouth Dockyard in 1954 the Foudroyant was
still there as a training vessel for the sea cadets and was always there as a land mark on my daily trip to the dockyard from Fareham.
But some years later it was no longer required for some reason for use as a training
vessel, and it was decided to get rid of it, and there were articles written in the local news papers to the effect that the French wanted it back to put it on display in a situation like the Victory.
But the government refused to allow this and the vessel
was towed out in to deep water and the bottom blown out of it with explosives so it would sink, which it did after some time, and is probably still there at the bottom. Gerry Darnborough (Added 8th
October 2006)
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