Following great success from the monitoring programmes on board HMS Victory and HMS M.33, Tinytag Plus 2 data loggers now appear on HMS Warrior and HMS Trincomalee.

Monitoring temperature and relative humidity is crucial to aid the conservation of historic ships and sensitive items on board.

HMS Victory’s data loggers

The HMS Victory Conservation Project involves major work to HMS Victory, Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s flagship, to ensure its preservation for the next fifty years.

Recent expansion to the conservation project includes a weather station, on the dockside outside the ship, which allows the tracking of outdoor conditions alongside conditions on board.

By cross-referencing the data recorded by the loggers with that recorded by the weather station, Head of Conservation Diana Davis and her team have been able to determine that changes in the weather are the main factor behind long-term environmental patterns on board.

Analysis of the rate of change in conditions internally and externally allows the team to calculate the lag times between the two, showing how quickly or slowly a change in the weather affects different areas of the ship.

This vital information helps the team to identify which areas are the worst affected by outdoor conditions, and enables them to take informed action to protect the Victory and its contents.

Tinytag and HMS M.33

Tinytag data loggers are also on board HMS M.33, the sole remaining British veteran of the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915-1916 and the Russian Civil War, and one of just three British warships from World War I still in existence.

Its metal hull means that interior temperatures can fluctuate hugely throughout the year – from a high of 51°C in the summer to a low of -5°C in the winter.

Continuous, year-round monitoring using the Tinytag Plus 2 data loggers allows quick and predictive responses to damaging conditions, resulting from the extreme temperatures such as overheating, condensation and damp.

Diana Davis comments: “The Tinytag temp/RH data loggers we installed on HMS Victory and HMS M.33 have been very successful in letting us track the environment within these ships.

“Since the Tinytags have been successful on these two ships, we have also now installed the same model of loggers on HMS Warrior (1860), afloat here in Portsmouth, and on HMS Trincomalee, at The National Museum of the Royal Navy Hartlepool, the oldest British sailing ship still afloat.”

Tracking internal conditions by gathering temperature and RH data helps predict when problems might arise, resulting in the better preservation of the ships and their contents.