The Other VICTORY - the world's mightiest ship when she sank in the Channel in 1744 is to be the subject of a possible legal battle and parliamentary questions, after the MoD let a US company (Odyssey Marine Exploration) excavate the British warship laden with a potentially lucrative cargo.    The Lord Renfrew is among leading archaeologists condemning the deal struck over the ship.    In return for excavating the vessel's historic remains, which may include gold and silver worth many millions of pounds, Odyssey Marine Exploration is entitled to receive "a percentage of the recovered artefacts' fair value" or "artefacts in lieu of cash".    The UNESCO Convention states that underwater cultural heritage may not be sold off or exploited for commercial gain.

The VICTORY the one before the one we all know, was a 100 gun First Rate ship of the line launched at Portsmouth in 1737 becoming became the flagship of the Channel Fleet.   The ship was wrecked in the English Channel during a storm in 1744 while returning to England as the flagship of Admiral Sir John Balchen having blockaded the French Brest fleet in the Tagus Estuary (Portugal).    For over 260 years she was believed to have been wrecked during the night on Black Rock, just off the Casquets with the loss of her entire complement of 1,150 sailors.   Frigates were dispatched search for the ship and eventually, Captain Thomas Grenville of the FALKLAND landed at Guernsey (Channel Islands) to provision, and there heard from locals that wreckage and part of a topmast had washed up on the island's shores. Further investigation proved that the wreckage had indeed come from the VICTORY.