Although she is one of the most famous warships in the history, the HMS Victory, which was built in the 1760s, fought at Trafalgar and nowadays is in the dry dock in Portsmouth had four predecessors under the same name.
The fourth one was launched in 1737 and became the flagship of the Channel Fleet under Sir John Norris in 1740. She was a 100-gun first-rate ship (like the famous fifth one half a century later). She was the last British first rate armed entirely with bronze cannon.
On the 3rd of October 1744, HMS ictory, under the command of Sir John Balchen shipwrecked during a storm near to the Channel Islands. At around 15:30 on 4 October, the ships accompanying Victory lost sight of her. 1150 souls lost their lives during the incident.
The wrecks were discovered in 2008. For more than two and a half centuries, people assumed, that the ship went down near the Casquets. But the wrecks were found more than 80 km from there.