In the summer of 2001 I was on the deck of Victory marvelling, as ever, at the history that this ship represented. Later the same afternoon I stood before the finest representation of the battle I had ever seen, the wonderful panorama of Trafalgar by W. L. Wylie.

In over a quarter of a century of marine painting I had never painted Trafalgar but I knew that with the bicentenary in four years time, if I were to tackle the subject I would have to start soon.

But what to paint? The obvious subject was Victory breaking the line but it had been painted by so many artists since 1805 and if my guess was correct would be painted by many more before 2005.

So I decided to paint this series of paintings of various incidents in the campaign and have been researching and working on them ever since.

The loss of my youngest son and several bouts of illness have played havoc with my work schedule during the past three years but the project is now complete and in print.

I hope these pictures will in some small way pay tribute to the bravery of British seamen throughout history.