Fregatten Jylland

I forget that Denmark was once a significant naval power, with a string of colonies and trading posts around the world. By the mid-nineteenth century, however, when the Jylland was launched, her global influence was on the wane. Her colonies and trading posts in India and West Africa had been sold to Britain and, in 1864 – the year the Jylland helped Denmark to win a tactical victory in the Battle of Heligoland, the last significant naval battle involving wooden ships – she would also lose Schleswig, Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg to Prussia and Austria in the Second Schleswig War.

Today the Jylland sits in a dry dock in Ebeltoft.  I find her under a grey drizzle, still impressive if somewhat diminished – the last surviving 44-gun screw-propelled steam frigate in the world.