HMS Invincible

In the book, Britain's Royal Navy plays a massive pivotal role

Yeah, the HMS Invincible, a British light aircraft carrier, and its entire task force are central to the plot

You have characters like Vice Admiral John White coordinating with the Americans.

You have Lieutenant Owen Williams, a British officer, whose fluency in Russian is the actual key that allows Jack Ryan to finally communicate with Ramius

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.

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.

A combined team from Bournemouth University, the Maritime Archaeology Trust, and the National Museum of the Royal Navy is carrying out this two million pound project to salvage the remains of the wreck.