HMS Invincible

It is monumentally expensive and usually only happens when the ship is of national importance and under threat of destruction.

Now, both are true for HMS Invincible, and this is the largest underwater excavation since the Mary Rose wreck.

For centuries, our nation's power lay in our maritime might.

But at the start of the 18th century, Britain's navy was in danger of losing its edge.

Then in 1747, the Royal Navy captured the French ship, L'Invincible, a cutting-edge, streamlined, 74-gun ship that could literally blow anything out of the water.

Renamed HMS Invincible, it became the flagship of the British Navy until it ran aground on the 19th of February, 1758.

The wreck of the Invincible provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to discover how the 18th century navy was being revolutionized.

And now that shifting sands are putting the wreck under threat, no expense is being spared to recover as much as possible.