'Victory' fights back

Refit after wooden structure of emblem of British maritime heritage damaged.

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The HMS Victory has survived the cannonballs of Napoleon's navy, being rammed by another warship, a World War II bomb, even UK navy plans to scrap her.

But nearly 260 years after it was launched, Victory - emblem of British maritime heritage and scene of naval hero Horatio Nelson's death during the Battle of Trafalgar is facing another equally deadly threat: the deathwatch beetle.

The 104-gun warship is undergoing a £45 million (just over Ri billion) refit, which is one of the biggest of its kind carried out.

Visited each year by over 350 000 people in Portsmouth Dockyard on England's southern coast, Victory's huge renovation follows the unwelcome discovery that much of the wooden structure was affected by rot.