On 11 October 1982, divers raised the surviving hull of the Mary Rose from the Solent near Portsmouth, 437 years after the ship sank. The recovery followed years of searching, excavation and planning.

The Mary Rose served in Henry VIII’s fleet. She sank on 19 July 1545 during the Battle of the Solent, when English ships confronted a French invasion fleet. Most of those aboard died. The cause of the sinking remains disputed. Part of the hull and thousands of objects were preserved beneath seabed silt.

In 1965, Alexander McKee began searching for the wreck with volunteer divers from the British Sub-Aqua Club. The surviving hull was located in 1971. Archaeologist Margaret Rule led the subsequent excavation, supported by professional staff and hundreds of volunteers. The team recorded timbers and artefacts before recovering them, preserving information about where the ship’s equipment and possessions had been stored.

Raising the hull presented a difficult engineering problem. Its surviving timbers were too fragile for an ordinary salvage lift. Engineers attached a purpose-built steel frame and used hydraulic jacks to free the hull from the seabed. They then transferred it into a supporting cradle. On 11 October, the crane barge Tog Mor lifted the cradle and hull to the surface. Spectators watched from Portsmouth, and the operation was televised.

The excavation recovered weapons, tools, shoes, cooking equipment and personal belongings. These objects provided evidence of daily life aboard the ship and the work carried out by sailors, soldiers, carpenters and the ship’s surgeon.

The waterlogged timbers required further treatment after recovery. They kept them wet to prevent shrinking and cracking, then treated them with polyethene glycol. This water-soluble wax helped stabilise the wood. Spraying ended in 2013, after which the timbers underwent controlled drying.

The surviving hull and recovered objects are displayed at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth. Parts of the wreck remain on the seabed.