"H.M.S. Hood sails from Portsmouth; 1935"

Limited Edition Print on Paper

Edition of 250

Image size: 14 x 20 inches (36 x 51 cm)

Framed size: 21 x 28 inches (53 x 71 cm)

Built on Scotland's River Clyde, Hood's great 860 foot long hull - already weighing some 21,000 tons - was launched on 22 August 1918 by Lady Hood, widow of Rear Admiral the Hon Horace Hood who had lost his life two years earlier in the battle cruiser Invincible at Jutland. His ancestor Viscount Samuel Hood's brilliant actions against the French in the West Indies at the end of the eighteenth century had become legendary and it had been decided that the name of the new ship should honour this family of great sailors. Not commissioned until some eighteen months after the Great War armistice, Hood had been too late to play any part in the First World War and would be old by the time the second one broke out. Yet by a combination of sheer size and power allied with her undeniable beauty of line and symmetry of shape she became the best-Known warship of her time and played a not insignificant part in the international politics of the next twenty years.

By the date of this painting Hoodwas well into middle age but with her stunning looks still intact, her size, speed and armament unsurpassed. The world-famous Hood had never been available, could never be spared it seemed, for a much-needed modernisation because she was always in demand at sea.