ABSTRACT
On the morning of 30 September 1863 the training ship HMS Britannia arrived off Castle Ledge Buoy at the mouth of the River Dart a mile or so from the small town of Dartmouth. Under tow from the paddle sloop Geyser and the tug Prospero she proceeded slowly through the rocky entrance, slipped the narrows between Dartmouth and Kingswear Castles and, avoiding the notoriously fluky winds at this point, safely made the open harbour. She was towed up river to a point about half a mile from the town and was brought up close to the western bank between the mouth of Old Mill Creek and the adjacent slip at Sandquay. The dropping of her four bow and stern anchors later that morning marked the beginning of an association between the port of Dartmouth and the training of officers for the Royal Navy that endures to the present day.
