The seventeenth-century Sovereign of the Seas shows how first rates evolved from earlier galleon and frigate forms. Launched in 1637, she underwent major work in 1651 and 1685 despite a notional twenty-year life for a seasoned-wood ship. The Navy could retain a vessel's name, fittings, and official continuity while replacing enough timber to amount to a new hull. Her survival until a 1697 fire illustrates both exceptional maintenance and the ambiguity of claiming a sixty-year service life. The ship also connects Charles I's ship-money policy to the later Restoration need for a more explainable rating and funding system.
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Sovereign of the Seas and the meaning of a rebuild
Sovereign of the Seas shows how repeated major rebuilds blurred ship identity while carrying the three-deck first-rate tradition into the eighteenth century.