We're just four weeks from the official opening of the new £27 million Mary Rose Museum.
Here our reporter Richard Jones takes a look at what's happened to the ship in the 30 years since it was raised.
Four weeks from the official opening of the new £27 million Mary Rose Museum, staff at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard have announced that spray jets have been turned off for the first time.
For almost three decades since being raised from the Solent, Henry VIII’s 500-year-old flagship has been continuously sprayed, first with chilled fresh water to remove salt and then with Polyethlene Glycol (PEG), a water soluble wax which prevents shrinkage of the timbers.
Switching the jets off today marks a "new historic milestone" in the conservation of the ship, which was submerged for more than 400 years.
The Tudor warship will now enter an air drying phase, where over 100 tons of water will be extracted from the hull over the next four to five years.
With a pioneering design, the new museum will encircle a “hot box” chamber that houses the hull of the ship as the drying out process takes place.
The Mary Rose will be the only sixteenth century warship on display anywhere in the world.
The £27m museum built to house the Mary Rose will open on 31st May 2013, nearly 500 years after the Tudor warship sank.
She was raised from the seabed in 1982 now has a museum built around her, reuniting the ship with its contents and crew.
The museum has been designed as a giant ‘air lock’ and time capsule, containing one of the most comprehensive collection of Tudor artefacts in the world - from belongings such as wooden eating bowls, leather shoes, musical instruments and even nit combs through to longbows and two-tonne guns.
For the first time crew members are being brought to life through forensic science: visitors can come face to face with a carpenter, cook and archer and even ‘Hatch’ the ship’s dog.
She was Henry VIII's flagship raised from the water after 437 seven years. But, today, she remains out of public view although, possibly, not for long.
The charity behind the Mary Rose Museum is £35,000 short of what it needs to complete the project to put the Tudor vessel - and thousands of artefacts - under the same roof for the first time. Kerry Swain has more and speaks to Robert Lapraik from the Mary Rose Trust.
The Mary Rose Trust, the charity behind the conservation of Henry VIII's beloved warship and its unrivalled collection of Tudor artefacts, has launched the final phase in its public fundraising appeal to find the final £35,000 needed to complete the project.
It will allow the 16th century hull to be reunited with many thousands of her 19,000 artefacts for the first time.
99.9% of a total target of £35m has so far been raised thanks to donations from the Heritage Lottery Fund, various charitable trusts, corporate and private sponsors and through the efforts of a loyal team of volunteer fundraisers.
The new Mary Rose Museum will be the most significant development to take place in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in a decade.
Showcasing the finest collection of 16th century artefacts in the world, the museum will be the first place that the general public will be able to see the iconic hull with its preserving sprays switched off as she undergoes the final stage of the conservation project.
The museum will open in the late Spring of 2013, marking 30 years since the hull was painstakingly raised from the seabed. To find out how to donate, click here.
It's been 30 years since Henry V111's flagship Mary Rose was brought to the surface after lying at the bottom of the sea for more than four centuriess. Bringing her up was a technological achievement.
Now she's at the forefront of science again - a new museum being built to house her will be one of the most advanced in the world. Here's John Lippiett, the Chief Executive of the Mary Rose Trust.
They fired in anger five hundred years ago and will soon form the centrepiece of a new museum. We're talking about the huge guns on Henry the VII's warship the Mary Rose. It's 30 years since the wreck was brought to the surface of the Solent. Now moving them has literally taken the roof off.
The large Tudor guns from the Mary Rose will be removed from the current museum in Portsmouth ahead of the opening of the new building at the end of the year. Because of their size, they'll be taken out through the roof by a crane.