Why the floating school repeatedly needed new hulls

Successive school ships reflected a practical need, rather than a ceremonial cycle of renaming. Local water conditions near Lanvéoc were less favorable to preserving wooden hulls than those at Dartmouth. Barnacles and other marine growth kept attacking the ships, so protection was an ongoing maintenance contest rather than a permanent solution. The repeated replacements show how infrastructure, environment, and biological decay limited the working life of wooden warships.