Naval/Maritime History 22nd of March - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1776 - The first salute of an American flag (Grand Union Flag) by a foreign power is rendered by the Dutch at St. Eustatius, West Indies in reply to a salute by the Continental ship Andrew Doria.


The dutch island Sint Eustatius sold arms and ammunition to anyone willing to pay. It was one of the few places from which the young United States could obtain military stores. The good relationship between St. Eustatius and the United States resulted in the noted "First Salute".

Sint Eustatius (Dutch pronunciation: [sɪnt øːˈstaːtsijʏs]), also known affectionately to the locals as Statia (/ˈsteɪʃə/), is an island in the Caribbean. It is a special municipality (officially “public body”) of the Netherlands.

On November 16, 1776, Captain Isaiah Robinson of the 14-gun American brig Andrew Doria, sailed into the anchorage below St. Eustatius' Fort Oranje. Robinson announced his arrival by firing a thirteen gun salute, one gun for each of the thirteen American colonies in rebellion against Britain. Governor Johannes de Graaff replied with an eleven-gun salute from the cannons of Fort Oranje. International protocol required a two gun less acknowledgment of a sovereign flag. The Andrew Doria flew the Continental Colors of the fledgling United States. It was the first international acknowledgment of American independence. The Andrew Doria had arrived to purchase munitions for the American Revolutionary forces. She was also carrying a copy of the Declaration of Independence which was presented to Governor De Graaff. An earlier copy had been captured on the way to Holland by the British. It was wrapped in documents that the British believed to be a strange cipher. In reality the documents were written in Yiddish, to Jewish merchants in Holland.

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First official salute to the American flag on board an American warship in a foreign port, 16 November 1776. Painting by Phillips Melville, depicting Continental Brig Andrew Doria receiving a salute from the Dutch fort at St. Eustatius, West Indies, 16 November 1776. The artist shows the "Grand Union" flag flying at Andrew Doria 's stern and foremast peak. Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C. Donation of Colonel Phillips Melville, USMC (Retired), 1977.

U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to St. Eustatius in 1939 to recognize the importance of the 1776 "First Salute". He presented a large brass plaque to St. Eustatius which is displayed today under a flagpole atop the walls of Fort Oranje. President Roosevelt visited the island for 2 hours on February 27, 1939 on the USS Houston. The plaque reads:

"In commemoration to the salute to the flag of the United States, Fired in this fort November 16. 1776, By order of Johannes de Graaff, Governor of Saint Eustatius, In reply to a National Gun-Salute, Fired by the United States Brig of War Andrew Doria, Under Captain Isaiah Robinson of the Continental Navy, Here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official. Presented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America"

The recognition provided the title for Barbara W. Tuchman's 1988 book The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution.

The British took the incident seriously. Britain protested bitterly against the continuous trade between the United Colonies and St. Eustatius. In 1778, Lord Stormont claimed in Parliament that, "if Sint Eustatius had sunk into the sea three years before, the United Kingdom would already have dealt with George Washington". Nearly half of all American Revolutionary military supplies were obtained through St. Eustatius. Nearly all American communications to Europe first passed through the island. The trade between St. Eustatius and the United States was the main reason for the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War,1780-1784. For example, the British Admiral George Brydges Rodney, having occupied the island for Great Britain in 1781, urged the commander of the landing troops, Major-General Sir John Vaughan, to seize "Mr. Smith at the house of Jones - they (the Jews of St. Eustatius, Caribbean Antilles) cannot be too soon taken care of - they are notorious in the cause of America and France." The war was disastrous for the Dutch economy.

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The island of St. Eustatius taken by the English fleet in February 1781. Admiral Rodney's sailors and troops pillaged the island.

Britain declared war on the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on December 20, 1780. Even before officially declaring war, Britain had outfitted a massive battle fleet to take and destroy the weapons depot and vital commercial center that St. Eustatius had become. British Admiral George Brydges Rodney was appointed the commander of the battle fleet. February 3, 1781, the massive fleet of 15 ships of the line and numerous smaller ships transporting over 3,000 soldiers appeared before St. Eustatius prepared to invade. Governor De Graaff did not know about the declaration of war. Rodney offered De Graaff a bloodless surrender to his superior force. Rodney had over 1,000 cannon to De Graaff's one dozen cannon and a garrison of sixty men. De Graaff surrendered the island, but first he fired two rounds as a show of resistance in honor of Dutch Admiral Lodewijk van Bylandt, who commanded a ship of the Dutch Navy which was in the harbor. Ten months later, the island was conquered by the French, allies of the Dutch in the war. The Dutch regained control over the looted and plundered island in 1784.

At its peak, St. Eustatius may have had a largely transient population of about 10,000 people. Most were engaged in commercial and maritime interests. A census list of 1790 gives a total population (free and enslaved people combined) of 8,124. Commerce revived after the British left. Many of the merchants (including the Jews) returned to the island. However, French and British occupations from 1795 disrupted trade and also the North-Americans, now globally recognised as an independent nation, had meanwhile developed their own trading network and did not need St. Eustatius anymore. The island was eclipsed by other Dutch ports, such as those on the islands of Curaçao and Sint Maarten. During the last years of the 18th century Statia developed trade in bay rum. The economy declined in the early 19th century. From about 1795, the population declined and in 1948 the population stood at a mere 921.


Andrew Doria was a brig purchased by the Continental Congress in November 1775. She is most famous for her participation in the Battle of Nassau—the first amphibious engagement by the Continental Navy and the Continental Marines—and for being the first United States vessel to receive a salute from a foreign power.

Type: Brig
Displacement: 190 long tons (190 t)
Length: 75 ft (23 m)
Beam 25 ft (7.6 m)
Depth: 10 ft (3.0 m)
Complement: 112 officers and men
Armament: 14 × 4-pounder (1.8 kg) guns


Purchase
On 13 October 1775, the Continental Congress authorized the purchase of the merchant brig Defiance. The ship was acquired in mid-November and moored in Wharton and Humphreys shipyard in Philadelphia where she was converted into a warship by Joshua Humphreys (hull strengthening), John Barry (re-rigging), and John Falconer (ordnance and provisioning) at a cost of £296.4s.6d. She was named Andrew Doria after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria. Under the command of Captain Nicholas Biddle, Andrew Doria departed Philadelphia on 4 January 1776, as a warship in Esek Hopkins' small fleet of five newly fitted warships (Alfred, Andrew Doria, Cabot, Columbus, and Providence), bound for the Chesapeake Bay. Between 11 and 17 February, the fleet was joined by the small sloop Fly, the sloop Hornet, and the schooner Wasp.

Battle of Nassau
Main article: Battle of Nassau
On 17 February 1776, Hopkins decided to take advantage of the discretion offered him and skip his missions in the Chesapeake Bay and along the coasts of the Carolinas. Instead, he took the fleet to the Bahamas for a raid on the island of New Providence to seize a large supply of gunpowder reportedly stored in the two forts that protected Nassau. On 1 March, the fleet reached the coast of Abaco Island where the ship Alfred captured two small sloops and Hopkins obtained intelligence from the prisoners that New Providence lay undefended. Hopkins planned to take Nassau by frontal assault, slipping his landing party of 270 sailors and marines into the harbor hidden on board the captured sloops. It was hoped that the American troops would not be detected until the landing and assault on Fort Nassau began. Success in this endeavor would enable the fleet to enter the harbor while the fort's guns, then in American hands, held the town at bay.

The marines and sailors embarked on the two captured sloops on the evening of 2 March and headed for New Providence, hoping to arrive at daybreak. While following the sloops, the fleet attempted to remain out of sight until the landing party had secured the fort. Andrew Doria—popularly referred to as the "Black Brig"—outdistanced her consorts and found it necessary to lay-to until the other American warships caught up. As the troop-carrying sloops headed into the harbor, Fort Nassau's guns opened fire. The shot fell short but demonstrated that the American fleet had been detected and that its intentions had been surmised. Hopkins recalled his ships.

After conferring with his officers, Hopkins decided to land his troops two miles (3 km) down the coast from Fort Montagu, which protected the eastern approaches to Nassau. The marines and sailors went ashore on 3 March and marched to Fort Montagu whose garrison surrendered without offering any real resistance. On 4 March, the Americans took Fort Nassau and town of Nassau. The fleet remained for almost two weeks, dismantling the guns of the forts and loading the captured materiel. During this stay, large numbers of the crew of each ship were stricken by a virulent fever. This complicated an already serious health problem caused by an outbreak of smallpox on all of the ships except for Andrew Doria whose crew had been protected by inoculation due to the far-sighted insistence of Nicholas Biddle. As a result of the crew's immunization, Andrew Doria was selected to serve as a hospital ship for the fleet and continued in this role for the remainder of the expedition. On 16 March, Hopkin's fleet departed Nassau and headed north.

Battle of Block Island
Main article: Battle of Block Island
Shortly after midnight on 6 April 1776, a lookout on Andrew Doria sighted two vessels to the southeast. Biddle passed word of the discovery to Hopkins who ordered the fleet to head for the strangers. The larger of the unidentified ships headed toward the Americans and before long she was within hailing distance and identified herself as "... his majesty's ship of war Glasgow...." A broadside from Cabot into the British frigate opened a fierce fight in which the American ships were unable to fight as a squadron. In attempting to avoid a salvo from Glasgow, Cabot crossed Andrew Doria's bow, forcing Biddle's brig onto a port tack which avoided collision but took her away from the action. Meanwhile, Alfred and Columbus, Hopkins' largest warships, took on Glasgow but received worse punishment than they inflicted.

As the crew of Andrew Doria worked the ship into position to reenter the engagement and opened fire, Glasgow's captain realized he was overmatched and decided to stand off to the northward. Andrew Doria, followed at a distance by her consorts, gave chase and kept up a running fight with her bow chasers until recalled by Hopkins, lest Glasgow lead his fleet to a Royal Navy squadron then operating in Rhode Island waters. When the American fleet had reformed, it retired to New London, Connecticut, where it arrived on the morning of 8 April.

Change of command
From 9 April to 17 September 1776, Andrew Doria patrolled the Atlantic coast from Connecticut to Bermuda, capturing a number of British and Loyalist ships. Capt. Biddle anchored his brig at Chester, Pennsylvania, on the evening of 17 September, ending his last cruise on the warship, as he had been selected to command Randolph, one of the four new frigates being built at Philadelphia for the Continental Navy. Capt. Isaiah Robinson took command of Andrew Doria.

First salute

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Fort Oranje on the island of Sint Eustatius fired the first salute by a foreign power to Andrew Doria.
See also: "First Salute"

Robinson sailed Andrew Doria down the Delaware River on 17 October 1776, for a voyage to the West Indies to obtain a cargo of munitions and military supplies at the Dutch island of Sint Eustatius. When the brig reached the island on 16 November, she fired a 13-gun salute and received a reply from Fort Oranje—the first salute to an American flag on board an American warship in a foreign port. Andrew Doria also carried a copy of the Declaration of Independence to the island. The so-called "first salute" was widely reported in the United States at the time, and later provided the title for Barbara Tuchman's 1988 book, The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution.

On her way back to the Delaware River, Andrew Doria encountered the sloop HMS Racehorse, of 10 guns, and under the command of Commander James Jones. A two-hour single-ship action ensued before Racehorse struck. Andrew Doria had lost four men killed and eight wounded; casualties on Racehorse apparently were higher. The Andrew Doria encountered a British Snow and assigned Joshua Barney to return the ship to Philadelphia, but was captured with a fouled rudder off Chincoteage by the HMS Perseus (1776). The captain released Barney on pardon in Charleston to return to Philadelphia on foot over 19 days. Andrew Doria returned to Philadelphia where the Continental Navy acquired Racehorse, which it renamed Surprise.

Scuttling
Andrew Doria was stationed in the Delaware River through the spring and summer of 1777. After Vice Admiral Lord Howe brought his British fleet into the river in September 1777, Andrew Doria was part of the forces charged with defending Philadelphia. Following the British occupation of Fort Mifflin on 16 November, Andrew Doria, with the remaining ships of the Continental Navy, sought shelter under the guns of Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, New Jersey. With the evacuation of Fort Mercer on 20 November, Robinson gave orders the next day for the ships to be burned to prevent capture. This was done shortly thereafter.

Replica
The not-for-profit organization Andrew Doria - The First Salute, Inc., is raising funds to build a working replica of Andrew Doria. On 18 May 2009, the city council of Havre de Grace, Maryland, agreed to lease land to the organization for the construction of a shipyard which will be located near the Susquehanna Museum at the Lockhouse on the banks of the Susquehanna River.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Doria_(1775_brig)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Eustatius#"First_Salute"
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1785 – Launch of French Pomone, (40-gun one-off design by Charles-Etienne Bombelle, with 28 x 18-pounder and 12 x 8-pounder guns, plus 4 x 36-pounder obusiers) at Rochefort
After capture by the british, they copied the design and launched the Endymion-class frigates based on her lines



Pomone was a 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1785. The British captured her off the Île de Batz in April 1794 and incorporated her into the Royal Navy. Pomone subsequently had a relatively brief but active career in the British Navy off the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France before suffering sufficient damage from hitting a rock to warrant being taken out of service and then broken up in 1803.

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Lines & Profile (ZAZ2277)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82068.html#vektzEWSWsgzv7vH.99

Class and type: 40-gun frigate
Displacement: 1400 tons (French)
Tons burthen: 1238 67⁄94
Length: 48.7 m (160 ft);
Beam: 12.2 m (40 ft)
Draught: 5.1 m (17 ft)
Complement:
  • French service:325
  • British service:300
Armament:
  • French service:
  • Battery: 26 (later 28) × 18-pounders
  • Battery at capture: 26 × 24-pounder guns
  • Forecastle and quarterdeck: 6 (1794 - 12) × 8-pounder guns and 4 × 36-pounder obusiers
  • British service:
  • Battery: 26 × 24-pounder guns
  • Battery 1799: 26 × 18-pounder guns
  • Fc: 4 × 32-pounders + 2 × 9-pounder guns
  • QD:14 × 32-pounders

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HMS Pomone off Greenwich, by Thomas Luny, 1797

French service
Pomone was built to a one-off design by Baron Charles-Etienne Bombelle. After her capture, her design inspired that of the Royal Navy's Endymion-class frigates.

Between 17 February and 28 August 1793, Pomone was stationed at Rochefort under the command of captain de vaisseau Dumoutier. She cruised along the coasts of the Vendée and then arrived at Brest. Dumoutier continued in command in late September. From 26 February 1794 Pomone was at Cherbourg under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Étienne Pévrieu. He sailed her from Cancale.

The British captured her, along with Babet and Engageante, off the Île de Batz during the Action of 23 April 1794.

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Capture of Pomone, Engageante and Babet

British service
She was recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Pomone and the Endymion-class frigates were built to her same lines, but by the British practice of fastening.

Read about here lon and intensive british career in wikipedia......

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No scale. Plan showing the midship section for the Pomone (1794), a 44 gun, Fifth Rate, Frigate, as taken off at Portsmouth Dockyard. The plan illustrates the damaged sustained to the hull framing after having been wrecked at St. Aubin's Bay, Jersey. NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 582 states that 'Pomone' (1794) arrived at Portsmouth Dockyard on 22 October 1802 and was docked on 10 November 1802. She was taken to pieces on 13 December 1802.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86660.html#CL94F2KeKfXdfdH6.99

Fate
On 23 September 1802, Pomone struck a rock while entering St. Aubin's Bay and sank. HMS Starling shuttled back and forth between Portsmouth and Jersey bringing back stores and taking out artificers. Pomone was refloated and towed into Portsmouth in October but was not worth repairing. On 31 October HMS Alonzo arrived from Jersey with more stores.

A court martial on 27 October on Neptune in Portsmouth Harbour, tried the pilot, John Geram, for her loss. The court ruled that he should not have attempted to enter the bay at night as he could have safely waited at sea until daylight. The court fined him all pay and allowances due to him for his services as pilot on Pomone and sentenced him to imprisonment in the Marshalsea for three months.

Pomone was broken up in 1803.


The Endymion-class was a class of six Royal Navy 40-gun fifth-rate frigates, with the prototype launched in 1797 and five slightly amended versions built of fir launched from 1813 to 1814.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for Liffey (1813), Forth (1813), Severn (1813), Liverpool (1814), and Glasgow (1814), all fir-built 40-gun Fifth Rate Frigates to be built at Blackwall by Wigram, Wells & Green. The plan records that the body was similar to that of Endymion (1797), a 40-gun Fourth Rate Frigate.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81537.html#zWy2Tg4r7OSOMPyv.99


Design
In 1794, a frigate squadron under the command of Captain Sir John Borlase Warren captured the French 40-gun frigate Pomone. Surprisingly to her captors, the ship was armed with 26 × 24-pounder long guns, a main armament that was relatively uncommon for frigates in the 18th century. Furthermore, the Pomone impressed the British with outstanding sailing qualities in every variation of the wind, and being capable of sailing more than 13 knots.

On 30 April 1795, the Admiralty ordered three frigates — with 36 guns, 38 guns and 40 guns — the first and third built to the lines of the captured French frigate and the second to a new design by the Surveyors (the ship designers of the Royal Navy). The 40-gun French design was copied from the Pomone, and in November 1795 the keel was laid down at the Rotherhithe shipyard of John Randall & Company for the new ship, which on 14 November 1795 was named as the HMS Endymion. She was launched on 29 March 1797 and towed to Deptford Dockyard, where she was commissioned in April 1797 and completed on 12 June 1797.

The Endymion was not an exact copy of the Pomone, being built to British design standards with stronger construction. Surprisingly, Endymion sailed even better than Pomone, reaching 14.4 knots, the highest recorded speed during the Age of Sail. Reclassified as a 48-gun fourth-rate frigate in February 1817, then as 50-gun, and finally as 44-gun in February 1839, Endymion's fine qualities were such that she continued to be praised for nearly half a century. She was finally broken up at Plymouth Dockyard in June 1868.

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Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of a 40 gun frigate(circa 1800). Plaque inscribed "125. Frigate of 40 guns, about 1800. Scale 1/48 (1/4" to 1') An English design based on the dimensions of French Pomone, a prize of 1794, but not actually representing that ship, although the name Pomona (sic) appears on the stern. The Endymion of 1797 must have been very similar. Dimensions: Gun Deck 160ft. Beam 42ft.". Deck detached.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/66573.html#BgLIA2sTqaI04UaW.99


The 1812 Programme
Early in 1812, war with the United States seemed inevitable. To cope with the heavy American 24-pounder frigates of the Constitution-type, the Admiralty decided to build a batch of new 24-pounder frigates. During the long war with France, the standard British frigate was of about 1000 tons and armed with a main battery of only 18-pounders, no match for the big US ships. The only proven design for a suitable 24-pounder frigate was that of Endymion, and in May 1812 two ships were ordered from Wigram, Wells & Green of Blackwall Yard, who were to construct all five ships eventually built. They differed from the prototype by being constructed of "fir" (actually, pitch pine) rather than oak, and mounted an extra (fourteenth) pair of 24-pounder guns on the upper deck forward. All would be reclassified as 50-gun fourth-rate frigates in February 1817; however, the use of softwood in their construction was such that they were only intended for a short lifetime, and indeed all five were taken to pieces after a few years' service.

The first pair were originally ordered on 4 May 1812 as the Tagus and Eridanus of the 18-pounder armed Leda class, but were renamed on 7 January 1813 as the Severn and the Liffey. The War broke out in June, and on 26 December two further ships were ordered, becoming the Glasgow and Liverpool. The final ship was the Forth, ordered on 7 January 1813. These five new ships were of a slightly modified design, having ports for 28 instead of 26 × 24-pounders and were built of softwood, to speed up the construction. The ships were launched from June 1813 to February 1814.

Principal characteristics
There were small variations in the dimensions of the different ships:
  • Length on gundeck: 159 feet 2 inches
  • Beam: 41 feet 11 inches
  • Tonnage: 1246 to 1277 tons
  • Established armament: 28 (Endymion 26) × 24 pounders, 20 × 32-pounder carronades, 2 × 9 pounder chase guns
  • Complement: 340 men
  • Rated: 40-gun fifth-rates, rerated as 50-gun fourth-rates in 1817.
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In 1870 Admiral Sir James Hope presented an almost identical picture of this subject by J. C. Schetky to the United Service Club in London and it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871 under the title 'A gallant rescue; naval incident of the French war' with a brief description, of which a longer version appears to have been supplied with the picture on Hope's authority. This was repeated in full when it was reshown at the Royal Naval Exhibition at Chelsea in 1891 (no. 620) and in the original Dictionary of National Biography entry on 'Endymion's' captain: 'Towards the close of the long French war, Captain the Hon. Sir Charles Paget, while cruising in the Endymion frigate on the coast of Spain, descried a French ship of the line in imminent danger, embayed among rocks upon a lee shore, bowsprit and foremast gone, and riding by a stream cable, her only remaining one. Though it was blowing a gale, Sir Charles bore down to the assistance of his enemy, dropped his sheet anchor on the Frenchman's bow, buoyed the cable, and veered it athwart his hawse. This the disabled ship succeeded in getting in, and thus seven hundred lives were rescued from destruction. After performing this chivalrous action, the Endymion, being herself in great peril, hauled to the wind, let go her bower anchor, club hauled and stood off shore on the other tack'. The RA description, perhaps tellingly of Hope or Schetky's familiarity with club-hauling, adds the technical point that 'Endymion' dropped her starboard bower for this dangerous manoeuvre. It involves a moving ship dropping an anchor to pull her bow round rapidly onto the other tack, and then cutting the cable at the critical moment. Mistiming could lead to loss of masts, with fairly obvious consequences in the situation shown. The whole story is, in fact, mysterious. For while Paget commanded the 'Endymion' around 1803 he did not do so towards the end of the 1793-1815 wars with France and nothing of this nature is recorded in his log. If true (which Sir John Knox Laughton in the DNB thought improbable), he may have omitted it for good reason in terms of the risk he took in hazarding his ship and the lives of his own men, albeit the seamanship involved is a testament to his confidence in them. He could not, however, have prevented it from entering naval lore by word of mouth and the earliest picture of it well predates both those of Schetky and Colls while being practically identical in composition. This is a little-known oil by Nicholas Pocock (1740 -1821), now in the Welholme Gallery collection at Grimsby. It was clearly not known to Laughton but must have been a composition familiar either to Colls, Schetky or both although there is no known engraving of it. Colls is mainly recorded as working and exhibiting in the 1850s, but had a longer career and it is not clear whether his picture predates Schetky's - to which it is very similar, or vice versa. It may be safer to suggest the latter, given that this example appears to be one of a same-size pair, the other (BHC0482) being based on a Huggins print of the action which, in equally story conditions, ended in the wreck of the 'Droits de l'Homme' on the Brittany coast in 1797. All three of the 'Endymion' pictures show her on the port tack as she prepares to drop her sheet anchor for the French two-decker, before bearing up into the wind, club-hauling and clawing offshore on the starboard tack. Colls was a marine painter who exhibited pictures at the British Institution, 1852 -54, from an address in Camden Town. His work is competent and attractive, and must have been fairly prolific since examples regularly appear on the market. His dates were not known until about 2004 when a genealogical web posting stated that he was born in Horstead, Norfolk, in 1812 into a family with a local history as owners of water mills; that he married Harriet Beal in Kent in 1841 and died in Hampstead, London, in 1887. He did have children since 'The Standard' of 5 March 1885 reported the death on 21 February of his third daughter, Isabella. The 'Morning Post' of 28 September 1887 announced his own death on the 23rd of that month, aged 75, the address in both case being given as 79 King Henry's Road, Regent's Park, rather than Hampstead. Whether he was related to either a contemporary subject painter, Richard Colls, or the younger landscape artist Harry Colls remains to be clarified. The Schetky version of the 'Endymion' picture remains in the United Service Club, London, now headquarters of the Institute of Directors.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12024.html#0y3DiLBjxi7eIPWK.99




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Pomone_(1787)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endymion-class_frigate
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1797 - HMS Tribune (1796 - 36), Cptn. Scory Barker, hit shoals and sank whilst entering Halifax Harbour, NS, Canada with the loss of 240 souls.


HMS Tribune was a Royal Navy 36-gun fifth rate. This frigate was originally the French Galathée-class frigate Charente Inférieure, which was launched in 1793 during the French Revolutionary Wars and renamed Tribune the next year. The British captured her and took her into service with the Royal Navy. She only served for a year before being wrecked off of Herring Cove, Nova Scotia on 16 November 1797. Of the 240 men on board, all were lost but 12 of her crew.

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lines & profile NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 229 states that 'Pique' (1795) arrived at Portsmouth Dockyard in December 1796 and was docked ini January 1797 where her copper was replaced. She was launched on 29 January 1797 and sailed in April 1797 having been fitted.

Class and type: 36-gun fifth-rate frigate
Tons burthen : 916 34⁄94 (bm)
Length: 143 ft 7 1⁄2 in (43.8 m) (overall); 119 ft 0 5⁄8 in (36.3 m)
Beam: 38 ft 0 1⁄2 in (11.6 m)
Depth of hold: 11 ft 6 1⁄2 in (3.5 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 244
Armament:
  • Upper deck:26 x 12-pounder guns
  • QD:6 x 6-pounder guns
  • Fc:2 x 6-pounder guns

Career
Capture

Main article: Atlantic Raid of June 1796
In mid-1796, Tribune was under the command of Commodore John Moulson (or Moulston), an American who had served in the French Navy for 16 years. He was in command of a squadron of three frigates and a corvette. One of the frigates, the 26-gun Proserpine, parted company with her companion vessels in a fog.

On 8 June Tribune and her remaining two companions, the frigate Tamise and the corvette Legere, were sailing off the south coast of Ireland. At daybreak the British frigates Unicorn and Santa Margarita spotted the three French vessels and proceeded to chase them.

Tamise eventually turned to engage her pursuers, but Santa Margarita captured her after a 20-minute battle. Legere escaped. Separately, Dryad captured Proserpine a few days later; the British took her into service as Amelia.

Tribune continued to attempt to escape Unicorn in a running fight that lasted ten hours. Unicorn eventually pulled alongside and an intense, 35-minutes long engagement ensued. Tribune attempted to drop astern to rake Unicorn's stern, but good hadling by Unicorn foiled the attempt. Unicorn again came alongside and continued to fire upon Tribune. Finally, when all her masts except her mizzenmast had been shot away, Tribune struck her colours.

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To Captain Sir Thomas Williams, This Print representing the Capture of the French Frigate La Tribune by His Majesty's Ship The Unicorn on the 8th June 1796...Is...inscribed (PAI5714)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/155654.html#BV0I1v5JL14OM5W3.99


Tribune had lost 37 men killed of her crew of 337 men, as well as 15 wounded, including Moulston. Unicorn, despite having only 140 of her normal complement of 151 aboard, with a lieutenant and her best seamen having taken a prize to Cork, had suffered no casualties.

The victory earned Unicorn's captain a knighthood. In 1847 the Admiralty awarded the remaining survivors of this action the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Unicorn 8 June 1796".[2] The crews of Santa Margaritta and Dryad also won the Naval General Service Medal with clasps "Sta. Margaritta 8 June 1796" for the capture of Tamise and "Dryad 13 June 1796" for the capture of Proserpine.

Sinking
Tribune was placed under the command of Captain Scory Barker, who sailed her sailed from Torbay on 22 September 1797 as escort to a convoy to the Quebec and Newfoundland fleets. En route he met Experiment, then 12 days out of Halifax. On 10 October Tribune lost sight of the convoy, but continued towards Halifax. As they approached the harbour, Captain Barker suggested waiting for a pilot, but was convinced by the master, who claimed that "he had beat a 44-gun ship into the harbour, that he had frequently been there, nor was there any occasion for a pilot since the wind was favourable." Captain Barker was apparently convinced by these assurances, and went below to arrange some papers he wished to take onshore. The master assumed the pilotage of the ship, assisted by one John Cosey, who had lived in the area previously.

As the ship progressed into the harbour, she began to approach the Thrum Cap shoal. Alarmed, the master summoned Mr Galvin, the master's mate, who at this time was sick below. Coming up on deck, Galvin heard the man in the chains sing out "by the mark five" and Cosey sing out "steady". Climbing onto a carronade, he attempted to ascertain the situation, whilst the master ran up to the wheel with the intent to wear ship. Before anything could be done however, Tribune struck the shoal. Alerted by the impact, Captain Barker rushed up on deck, exclaiming "You have lost the ship" to the master. Distress signals were quickly run up, which were acknowledged by the military posts nearby, as well as the ships in the harbour, and several craft set out to aid the stricken ship. A number of military boats, and a boat under the command of a Mr Rackum, boatswain of the ordinary, managed to reach Tribune. Strong adverse winds prevented many others from doing so though.

Her crew now made attempts to lighten Tribune. The guns, save one for signalling, were thrown overboard, as was every other heavy article. These efforts allowed Tribune to get off the shoal by 9 o'clock in the evening. She had by now lost her rudder and had seven feet of water in the hold. The crew manned the pumps but after a period of time in which they seemed to be gaining on the leaks, a violent gale from the south east blew up and carried Tribune steadily towards the western shore. Lieutenants Campbell and North managed to escape in a jolly boat, but by half past ten, Tribune lurched over and sank off Herring Cove, Nova Scotia. The captain and officers were believed lost, but over 240 men, women and children remained, floating in the water or clinging to the rigging.

Eventually nearly a hundred of the survivors had managed to climb into the rigging, but as the night wore on and the storm took its toll, many dropped off and were swept away. Eventually there were only eight remaining, despite them being close enough to the shore to converse with the local inhabitants who had lit a large bonfire on the beach. At 8 o'clock in the morning, a 13-year-old boy named Joe Cracker went out in a small skiff and brought off a man named David Monroe, another named Dunlap and two others, who were so exhausted they wished only to perish as they lay and had to be lifted into the skiff. As the weather improved, a number of boats were able to reach the wreck, bringing off another four. Overall, four had escaped in the jolly boat and another eight had been brought off from the rigging. These twelve were the only survivors of the wreck.

Commemoration

Lt. Benjamin James, Royal Nova Scotia Regiment, Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia), died while trying to rescue those who died in the HMS Tribune in 1797; commemorated by Prince Edward

The location of the sinking was soon named Tribune Head. A cairn and bronze plaque in Herring Cove mark the site and the nearby mass grave of her victims. Salvors recovered Tribune's bell in the 19th century and presented it to St. Paul's Catholic church in Herring Cove. The bell was donated to the Nova Scotia Museum in the 1920s and now forms the centrepiece of an exhibit about the wreck at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lt. Benjamin James of the Royal Nova Scotia Regiment died while trying to rescue passengers. He was buried at the Old Burying Ground (Halifax, Nova Scotia) and commemorated by Prince Edward.


The Galathée class was a type of 32-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed by Raymond-Antoine Haran, with 26 × 12-pounder and 6 × 6-pounder guns. six units were built in all, seeing service during the Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War, and later in the French Revolutionary Wars. The Royal Navy captured and took into service five of the six, the sixth being wrecked early in the French Revolutionary Wars.

Galathée-Dumoulin-IMG_5509.JPG
Galathée, drawn in 1781 by François Aimé Louis Dumoulin
Builder: Rochefort
Ordered:
Launched: 1779
Fate: wrecked in 1795
Builder: Bordeaux
Ordered:
Launched: 1779
Fate: sold as a privateer and captured in 1804 by the Royal Navy. Taken into British service as HMS Antigua.
Builder: Rochefort
Ordered:
Launched: 1785
Fate: renamed to Pique, captured by the Royal Navy and taken into British service as HMS Pique in 1796
Builder: Rochefort
Ordered:
Launched: 1793
Fate: renamed Tribune in February 1794, captured by British Navy in 1796 and taken into British service as HMS Tribune, being wrecked the next year
Builder: Bordeaux
Ordered:
Launched: 1794
Fate: renamed Renommée in 1795; captured by British Navy in 1796, becoming HMS Renommee. Broken up 1810
Builder: Pierre Guibert, Bordeaux
Ordered:
Launched: 1794
Fate: Renamed Décade in 1795; captured by British navy in 1798, becoming HMS Decade. Sold 1811


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Tribune_(1796)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galathée-class_frigate
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1803 - HMS Circe (1785 - 28), Cptn. Charles Fielding, wrecked on the Leman and Ower shoal, off Yarmouth, while chasing an enemy.


HMS Circe was a 28-gun Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1785 but not completed or commissioned until 1790. She then served in the English Channel on the blockade of French ports before she was wrecked in 1803.

large (2).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines and longitudinal half breadth for Pomona (1778), then Pegasus (1779), then Mercury (1779), and wih pencil alterations for Hussar (1784), Rose (1783), Dido (1784), Thisbe (1783), Alligator (1787), Circe (1783), Lapwing (1785), all 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigates. Signed by John Williams [Surveyor of the Navy, 171765-1784]. The top ship is not 'Laurel' as listed in the annotation on the right, as this plan predates her ordering by over one year.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/83173.html#rthWtzjeTB43qO9C.99


Class and type: Enterprise-class sixth-rate frigate
Tons burthen: 599 55⁄94 (bm)
Length:
  • 120 ft 6 3⁄8 in (36.738 m) (gundeck)
  • 99 ft 5 in (30.30 m) (keel)
Beam: 33 ft 7 3⁄4 in (10.255 m)
Depth of hold: 11 ft 0 in (3.35 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 200 officers and men
Armament:
  • Gundeck: 24 × 9-pounder guns
  • QD: 4 × 6-pounder guns + 4 x 18-pounder carronades
  • Fc: 2 x 18-pounder carronades


Career
The Circe was first commissioned in September 1790 under the command of Captain George Oakes. She was paid off in October 1791. Captain A. H. Gardiner commissioned her in April 1792.

French Revolutionary Wars
Joseph Sydney Yorke was promoted to post-captain on 4 February 1793 and given command of Circe, then part of a squadron under Admiral Richard Howe. He patrolled off the French port of Brest. In March Circe took the French ships Diane, Vaudreuiland Jeune Felix. Circe shared the prize money for Diane and Vaudreuil with Druid. On 18 March Circe captured the Danish brig Pelican.

Then in May Circe took the French privateers Didon (or Dido) and Auguste (or 1 Auguste). Didon was armed with 14 guns and had a crew of 100 men. Auguste was armed with 18 and had a crew of 160. Lastly, Circe captured the privateer Coureur (or Courier), of 10 guns and 84 men. She shared with Aimable in the prize money for Courier, which they had captured on 26 May.

With Nymphe, Circe captured the corvette L'Espiegle on 20 November. Espiegle was pierced for 16 guns, and was manned with 100 men under the command of Mons. Pierre Biller, Enseign de Vaisseau. The Royal Navy took Espiegle into service under her existing name.

Circe played a minor, supporting role at the Action of 20 October 1793 and consequently shared with Crescent in the prize money for Réunion. At some point Circe and Phaeton recaptured the brig Venus and sloop Ant, "laden with Butter". On 24 May 1794, Circe recaptured the brig Perseverance, while in company with the rest of the squadron under the command of Rear-Admiral Montagu.

In October 1794 Captain Peter Halkett took command of Circe. In May 1797, due to the exertions of her officers, Circe's crew did not join the Spithead and Nore mutinies. Halkett received orders to put out to sea, which he did, leaving Yarmouth and sailing, together with some hired armed vessels to protect merchant trade. He continued to cruise until his supplies were almost exhausted and then he sailed Circe into the Humber. He then waited at Hull until the mutiny was over. Halkett received the "thanks of the Admiralty and the freedom of the town of Hull for the conduct of his ship during the alarming period." On 23 August 1795, Circe captured the Swedish corn vessel, Auguste Adolphe, in the North Sea.

In October 1797 Circe was part of the squadron under Sir Henry Trollope that was at the Texel to watch the Dutch fleet. On 11 October Circe served to repeat signals for the Starboard or Weather Division under Admiral Adam Duncan at the Battle of Camperdown. On 12 February 1798 £120,000 in prize money resulting from the sale of Dutch ships captured on 11 October 1797 was due for payment. In 1847 the surviving members of the crews of all the British vessels at the battle qualified for the NGSM with the clasp "Camperdown".

In December 1797 Captain R. Winthrop replaced Halkett. On 14 May 1798 Circe sailed with Sir Home Popham's expedition to Ostend attack the sluice gates of the Bruge canal. In the early hours of the 18 May, the expedition landed in 1,300 troops under Major General Coote. The army blew up the locks and gates, but was then forced to surrender. Winthrop commanded the seamen landed from the different ships, and for getting the powder and mines up for the destruction of the locks. To signal his approbation, Home Popham had Winthrop and Circe carry back the dispatches. Circe lost two master's mates killed.

Between 27 July and 29 August 1798, Circe captured five Greenland ships and six Iceland doggers.

On 4 June 1799, Circe and Jalouse recaptured the sloop Ceres. Six days later, Circe recaptured Expedition from the French. Then at the end of the month, on 26 June, Circe and the hired armed cutter Courier captured Twee Gesisters. Two days later, Winthrope sent in the boats of Circe, Jalouse, Pylades, Espiegle, and Tisiphone to cut out some gunboats at Ameland. When the British arrived, they found that their targets were pulled up on shore where the cutting out party could not reach them. The British instead took out 12 merchant vessels, six with cargoes and six in ballast, and retreated. There were no British casualties, even though Dutch shore batteries fired on the attackers.

Then on 10 July Circe was a part of a small squadron consisting of Jalouse, Espiegle, Courier, Pylades, and the hired armed cutter Nancy, all under Winthrop's command. The boats of the squadron rowed for 15 or 16 hours into the Watt at the back of Ameland. There they captured three merchant vessels carrying sugar, wine and brandy, and destroyed a galliot loaded with ordnance and stores.

Between 18 July and 1 August, Circe, Pylades, Espiegle, Courier, and Nancy captured Marguerita Sophia, Twee Gesister, Twee Gebroders, Twee Gebroders, Jussrow Maria Christina, Vrow Henterje Marguaritha, Stadt Oldenburg, Vrow Antje, Vrow Gesina, Endraght, and the Frederick.

On 28 August 1799, Circe was at the Nieuwe Diep. There she took possession of 13 men-of-war, ranging in size from 66 guns to 24, and three Indiamen. She also took possession of the Naval Arsenal and its 95 pieces of ordnance. This was all part of the Vlieter Incident, the surrender without a fight of a squadron of the navy of the Batavian Republic, commanded by Rear-Admiral Samuel Story, during the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland to the British navy on a sandbank near the Channel known as De Vlieter, near Wieringen, on 30 August.

More modestly, on 15 September Circe captured Frau Maria Decelice.

On 9 October Circe's boats captured the corvette or "Ship of War" Lynx and the schooner Perseus at the port of Delfzel on the River Ems. Lynx was armed with 12 guns and had a crew of 75 men; Perseus had eight guns and a crew of 40 men. Although the Dutch vessels' guns were loaded and primed, the Dutch apparently did not put up any resistance. The cutters Hawke and Nancy shared in the prize money.

In January 1800 Captain Isaac Wooley assumed command of Circe. On 25 June she and Venus captured the Danish vessel Carolina, which was carrying a cargo of wine from Bordeaux to Bremen.

On 17 July Circe, together with Tromp, Venus, left Portsmouth with a convoy to the West. Indies.

Between 3 August and 1 January 1801, Circe captured a number of small prizes on the Jamaica station.
  • English schooner Success, of 60 tons;
  • American schooner Automaton, of 60 tons, carrying cordage and lead;
  • Spanish schooner Susannah, of 60 tons'
  • American schooner Scorpion, of 100 tons, carrying coffee;
  • French schooner Hussar, of 15 tons carrying old iron;
  • Spanish sloop Mexicana, of 20 tons;
  • American schooner Assistance, of 110 tons, carrying coffee; and,
  • French privateer schooner Secrisua, of 90 tons.
In July 1802 Captain J. Hayes replace Wooley.

Fate
Captain Charles Fielding assumed command in June 1803. On 16 November 1803, Circe was sailing to return to her station on the blockade of France after gales had driven her into the North Sea. At 3pm she struck the Lemon and Ower sandbank. Although she was able to get over the bank, she lost her rudder and her hull started to let in water. By 2am on 17 November she was able to anchor and daylight revealed that she was off the coast of Norfolk. Several fishing vessels came out of Yarmouth to help. She took the captains of two of them on board as pilots, and towing their boats, sailed for the port. However, the weather had not improved and, despite her crew's efforts at the pumps, the water in her kept rising. Fielding decided to abandon ship and at 7pm her crew transferred to the fishing vessels. The subsequent court martial blamed inaccuracies in Circe's navigation charts for her loss.

large (3).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile plan for the Enterprize Class 1770: Enterprize (1774), Siren (1773), Fox (1773), Surprize (1774), Acteon (1775), Medea (1778), Serpine (1777), Andromeda (1777), Aurora (1777), Sibyl (1779), Brilliant (1779), Pomona (1778), Crescent (1779), Nemesis (1780), Resource (1778), Mercury (1779), Cyclops (1779), Vestal (1779), Laurel (1779), Pegasus (1779), and with modifications, written in green ink, for Hussar (1784), Rose (1783), Dido (1784), Thisbe (1783), Alligator (1787), Circe (1783), Lapwing (1785), all 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigates building at various Royal and private yards. The reverse of the plan shows a section through the deck for the after Bitts as they appear face on, from upper deck to keel.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/83174.html#biKEkGcMYOkwBsxz.99


The Enterprise-class frigates were the final class of 28-gun sailing frigates of the sixth-rate to be produced for the Royal Navy. These twenty-seven vessels were designed in 1770 by John Williams. A first batch of five ships were ordered as part of the programme sparked by the Falklands Islands emergency. Two ships were built by contract in private shipyards, while three others were constructed in the Royal Dockyards using foreign oak.

A second batch of fifteen ships were ordered in 1776 to 1778 to meet the exigencies of the North American situation, and a final group of seven ships followed in 1782 to 1783 with only some minor modifications to include side gangways running flush with the quarter deck and forecastle, and with solid bulkheads along the quarterdeck.

Enterprize class 28-gun sixth rates 1773-87; 27 ships, designed by John Williams.
  • HMS Siren 1773 - wrecked on the coast of Connecticut 1777.
  • HMS Fox 1773 - taken by USS Hancock 1777, retaken by HMS Flora a month later, but then taken by the French Junon off Brest in 1778.
  • HMS Enterprize 1774 - hulked as receiving ship at the Tower of London 1791, broken up 1807.
  • HMS Surprise 1774 - sold 1783.
  • HMS Actaeon 1775 - grounded at Charleston and burnt to avoid capture on 28 June 1776.
  • HMS Proserpine 1777 - wrecked off Heligoland in 1799.
  • HMS Andromeda 1777 - capsized in the Great West Indian Hurricane of 1780.
  • HMS Aurora 1777 - sold 1814.
  • HMS Medea 1778 - hulked as a hospital ship at Portsmouth in 1801 and sold in 1805.
  • HMS Pomona 1778 - renamed Amphitrite in 1795, broken up 1811.
  • HMS Resource 1778 - converted to troopship in 1799, hulked as receiving ship at the Tower of London and renamed Enterprize in 1803, broken up in 1816.
  • HMS Sibyl 1779 - renamed Garland in 1795, lost off Madagascar on 26 July 1798.
  • HMS Brilliant 1779 - broken up 1811.
  • HMS Crescent 1779 - captured by the French frigates Gloire (1778) and Friponne (1780) on 20 June 1781.
  • HMS Mercury 1779 - used as floating battery since 1803, converted to troopship in 1810, broken up in 1814.
  • HMS Pegasus 1779 - converted to troopship in 1800, hulked as receiving ship in 1814, sold 1816.
  • HMS Cyclops 1779 - converted to troopship in 1800, hulked as receiving ship at Portsmouth in 1807, sold 1814.
  • HMS Vestal 1779 - converted to troopship in 1800, on lease to Trinity House from 1803 to 1810, hulked as prison ship at Barbados in 1814, sold 1816.
  • HMS Laurel 1779 - driven ashore and disintegrated during the Great West Indian Hurricane of 1780.
  • HMS Nemesis 1780 - taken by the French in 1795, retaken in 1796, converted to troopship in 1812, sold 1814.
  • HMS Thisbe 1783 - converted to troopship in 1800, sold 1815.
  • HMS Rose 1783 - wrecked on Rocky Point, Jamaica, on 28 June 1794.
  • HMS Hussar 1784 - wrecked near Île Bas on Christmas Eve 1796.
  • HMS Dido 1784 - converted to troopship in 1800, hulked as Army prison ship at Portsmouth in 1804, sold 1817.
  • HMS Circe 1785 - wrecked near Yarmouth on 6 November 1803.
  • HMS Lapwing 1785 - hulked as salvage ship at Cork in 1810, residential ship at Pembroke from 1813, broken up in 1828.
  • HMS Alligator 1787 - hulked as salvage ship at Cork in 1810, sold in 1814.

large (4).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline with some detail, sheer lines with inboard detail, longitudinal half breadth for Circe (1785), a 28-gun, Sixth Rate Frigate building at Dover, and launched on 30th October 1785. Reverse: Scale: 1:96. Plan showing the quarterdeck and forecastle, upper deck, lower deck, and fore & aft platforms for Circe (1785), as built.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82996.html#hQq2Jz5QHiWcozKX.99



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Circe_(1785)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise-class_frigate
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-302280;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=C
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1807 - Launch of HMS Warspite, a 74-gun Ship of the Line at Chatham
Warspite was later reduced to a one-decker 50-gun razee-frigate in 1840


HMS Warspite was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1807. She served in the Napoleonic Wars and was decommissioned in 1815. After conversion to a 76-gun ship in 1817 she circumnavigated the world, visiting Australia. She was cut down to a single decker 50-gun frigate in 1840 and was decommissioned in 1846. She was lent as a boys' training ship to The Marine Society and was lost to fire in 1876.

large (5).jpg
Scale 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for building 'Warspite' (1807), a 74-gun, Third Rate, two decker. Signed by John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806] and William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793-1813].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80786.html#jkMAkrKZXO1hwE2F.99


Design and construction
After a long delay due to shortage of timber, Warspite was launched on 16 November 1807 at Chatham and commissioned by Sir Henry Blackwood, Admiral Lord Nelson's ‘favourite frigate captain’. She was designed by Sir John Henslow as one of the large class 74s, and was the second, and last, ship of a class of two (the other being Colossus). As a large '74', she carried 24-pdrs on her upper gun deck instead of the 18-pdrs found on the middling and common class 74s.

Class and type: 74-gun third-rate ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1890 bm
Length: 179 ft 10 in (54.8 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 49 ft (14.9 m)
Draught: Underside of keel to uppermost point of taffrail 16.5m
Depth of hold: 21 ft (6.4 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 600
Armament:
  • 74 guns:
  • Gundeck: 28 × 32-pdr guns
  • Upper gundeck: 30 × 24-pdr guns
  • Quarterdeck: 12 × 9-pdr guns
  • Forecastle: 4 × 9-pdr guns
Notes: One of the earliest to be refitted with diagonal framing trusses



Napoleonic Wars
Warspite spent three years between 1807 and 1810 playing a supporting role in the Peninsular War. She took part in the long blockade of Toulon in 1810. She then joined the Channel Fleet, protecting British trade while intercepting French and American ships. During early 1813 Warspite took a couple of lucrative ‘prizes’ including a US schooner bound for Philadelphia ‘with brandy, wine, silks, etc.,’ from France. In June 1814 her name appears for the first time on the North American and West Indies Station, when she carried reinforcements to Quebec; the first 74-gun ship to go so far up the Saint Lawrence River, under Captain Lord James O'Brien.

76-gun ship of the line
She was paid off in 1815 only to be recommissioned in 1817 when she was modified to carry 76 guns. At the same time her stern was altered and she was given diagonal bracing on the framing introduced by Sir Robert Seppings. In 1825 she sailed from Portsmouth with Rear Admiral Philip Woodehouse as the new commanding officer of the West Indies station. During 1826-27 she circumnavigated the World under Captain William Parker, but bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Gage, departing from Spithead for India. At Trincomalee Rear-Admiral Gage was replaced by Commodore Sir James Brisbane as the new South Atlantic (Rio de Janeiro) Station commander-in-chief. However, following Commodore Brisbane's death from a contracted tropical disease, Captain Richard Saunders Dundas of the accompanying 6th rate Survey ship HMS Volage took command for the rest of the voyage which saw Warspite as the first ship of the line to visit Port Jackson in the colony of New South Wales in Australia. Returning to the station with the Malta squadron late in 1828 she was detached to transport Count Capo d'Istria, President of the Greek republic, to various locations around the Eastern Mediterranean while blockading Navarino, Modon and Coron in coordination with the French and Russian allied squadrons. In this capacity it helped to interdict two Egyptian corvettes at Navarino, one suffering substantial damage when it ignored warning shots and was engaged with the main battery. Captain Parker then participated in several conferences with Ibrahim Pasha to negotiate the withdrawal of Egyptian troops from Greece. In 1831 she was at the South American (Rio de Janeiro) station as the flagship of Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Baker, Captain Charles Talbot, at one time contribution towards salvage of HMS Thetis (1817) cargo off Cape Frio in 1830.

50-gun frigate (1840–46)
Warspite was reduced to a one-decker 50-gun frigate in 1840, for service on the Home station under Lord John Hay, and is recorded to have visited the United States in 1842, exchanging salutes with USS North Carolina and the frigate Columbia in the New York harbor. She was then used for anti-piracy patrols in the Mediterranean, including the blockade of the mouth of the river Xanthus in 1844. Her last senior officer was Captain Wallis, serving at the Gibraltar station before she was paid off in 1846.

large (6).jpg
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile proposed (and approved) for cutting the Warspite (1807), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, down to a 50-gun Fourth Rate Frigate. The plan includes a sketch of the figurehead. Signed by John Edye [Chief Assistant and Draughtsman to the Surveyor of the Navy] and John Barrow [Second Secretary to the Admiralty].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81662.html#2R6ds2RqUTIpPHb5.99


Class and type: 50-gun frigate
Length: 179 ft 10 in (54.8 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 49 ft (14.9 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft 10 in (4.2 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 475
Armament:
  • 50 guns:
  • Upperdeck: 28 × 32-pdr guns
  • Quarterdeck: 16 × 32-pdr guns
  • Forecastle: 6 × 32-pdr guns

Training ship (1862–79)
In 1862 she was loaned to The Marine Society as a boys' training ship, for which she was permanently moored on the Thames between Woolwich and Charlton. Training for about 150 boys at a time was conducted over about 10 months to provide basic seaman knowledge, including of ship lore, rigging and discipline, sufficient to be employed as Boy Seaman in either the Royal Navy or the merchant marine. On 6 August 1863 she was struck by the Russian ironclad Pervenets while the latter was undergoing sea trials.

Fate
She was destroyed by fire (arson was suspected but never proven) in January 1876, while still on loan. The wreck was sold to McArthur and Co on 2 February 1876


A razee or razée /rəˈziː/ is a sailing ship that has been cut down (razeed) to reduce the number of decks. The word is derived from the French vaisseau rasé, meaning a razed (in the sense of shaved down) ship.

Eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

In the Royal Navy, the razee operation was typically performed on a smaller two-deck ship of the line, resulting in a large frigate. The rationale for this apparent reduction in strength was that the smaller ships-of-the-line could no longer be used safely in fleet actions as the overall size and armament of opposing ships increased. The resulting razeed ship was classed as a frigate; it was stronger than the usual run of purpose-built frigates.

In similar fashion, three-decked ships of the line were sometimes razed, either to become flush-decked (with the quarterdeck and forecastle removed) or cut down to become two-deckers.

Three 64-gun ships were cut down (razeed) in 1794 into 44-gun frigates. The most successful was HMS Indefatigable which was commanded by Sir Edward Pellew.
Towards the close of the Napoleonic Wars, three elderly 74-gun ships were razeed into 58-gun fourth rates (not losing a complete deck, so remaining a two-decker, but having the quarterdeck removed). Two more followed immediately post-war, although the second never completed conversion.
Another eleven more-recent 74s were razeed in 1826-1845, in this case being fully reduced to 50-gun heavy frigates; three others were scheduled for similar conversion, but this was never completed.
French razée warships (Revolutionary War conversions)
In the French navy, a number of 74-gun two-deckers were similarly razeed into 54-gun ships:
  • Diadème (renamed Brutus in September 1792 and razeed between December 1793 and May 1794)
  • Hercule of 1778 (razeed between February and June 1794, then renamed Hydre in May 1795)
  • (renamed Protecteur
  • Argonaute of 1781 (razeed between December 1793 and March 1794, then renamed Flibustier in June 1794)
  • Illustre of 1781 (razeed between August 1793 and February 1794, renamed Mucius Scevola in January 1794, name shortened to Scevola in February 1794)
  • Brave of 1781 (razeed between April 1793 and January 1794, without change of name)
  • Borée of 1785 (renamed Ça Ira in April 1794, then again Agricola in June 1794 and razeed between April and July 1794)
  • Agamemnon of 1812
United States razee warship


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Warspite_(1807)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razee
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-359119;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=W
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
16 November 1917 - Italian monitor Alfredo Cappellini wrecked


Alfredo Cappellini was an Italian monitor converted from the floating crane GA53 during World War I. She bombarded Austro-Hungarian positions during the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo in 1917 before she was wrecked off Ancona on 16 November 1917.

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Development and description
Alfredo Cappellini was built when Cannone navali da 381/40 guns from the Francesco Caracciolo-class battleships became available after their construction was suspended in 1916. Her guns were built by Ansaldo-Schneider and originally destined for the Francesco Morosini. Converted from the floating crane GA53, she displaced 1,452 long tons (1,475 t), with a length between perpendiculars of 36 meters (118 ft 1 in), a beam of 18 meters (59 ft 1 in) and a draft of 2.4 meters (7 ft 10 in). The ship was powered by one 265-indicated-horsepower (198 kW) vertical double-expansion steam engine. On sea trials the ship reached a maximum speed of 3.76 knots (7.0 km/h; 4.3 mph), but her maximum speed in regular service was about 3.5 knots (6.5 km/h; 4.0 mph).

Her hull and gun turret were unarmored, but she was protected by two anti-torpedo nets. Her main guns could elevate 20° and her turret could traverse 30° to either side. They fired an 884 kg (1,949 lb) armor-piercing shell at a muzzle velocity of 700 m/s (2,297 ft/s) to a range of 27,300 m (89,567 ft) at maximum elevation.

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Service
Alfredo Cappellini was launched in 1915, even before the battleships were officially suspended, by the Orlando Shipyard, in Livorno, completed on 24 April 1917 and commissioned four days later. Her first action came during the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo in August 1917. She, in company with the Italian monitor Faà di Bruno and the British monitors HMS Earl of Peterborough and HMS Sir Thomas Picton, bombarded Austrian positions with little noticeable effect. She was wrecked on 16 November 1917 off Ancona.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_monitor_Alfredo_Cappellini
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 16 November


1728 – launch of French Zéphyr, (28-gun design by François Coulomb, with 22 x 8-pounder, 4 x 4-pounder and 2 x 4-pounder guns) at Toulon – captured off Brest by the British Navy September 1762.

8-pounder armed frigates (frégates du deuxième ordre)


1798 - HMS Carnatick (74), Commodore Loring, impressed seamen from USS Baltimore (20), Cptn Phillips.

USS Baltimore was a ship of the United States Navy.

This 20-gun ship was built in 1798 by Joseph Caverly in Baltimore, Maryland, as Adriana. She was purchased with funds donated by the citizens of Baltimore to the Navy on 23 May 1798, renamed Baltimore, and placed under the command of Captain Isaac Phillips.

In August 1798 the Baltimore was ordered to join the Constellation and convoy a fleet of merchantmen home from Havana, Cuba. Late in 1798, Baltimore and Constitution[1] were escorting a large convoy to Havana, when the latter sprung her bowsprit and returned home. Baltimore later fell in with two British frigates, on 16 November 1798, who impressed 55 of her crew (50 were returned). On his return to the United States, Captain Phillips was dismissed for permitting an "outrage to the American flag". The incident also created much anti-British feeling among the Americans.

During 1799 Baltimore took two prizes, and the following year three more, as well as recapturing three American vessels which had fallen into French hands. At the close of the Quasi-War with France, she carried the ratified peace treaty to France. Upon her return, Baltimore was sold at Philadelphia in 1801.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Carnatic_(1783)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Baltimore_(1798)


1811 - Launch of Asia (1811 EIC ship) - of 958 41⁄94 tons (bm) by Barnard, Deptford.

She made ten voyages for the EIC. Her master for her first voyage, Captain the Hon. Henry Pindarves Tremenheere, received a letter of marque on 16 January 1812. It described Asia as a ship of 1012 tons (bm), with a crew of 120 men, and armed with thirty-two 18-pounder guns.[2] On 20 September 1831 she was sold for £6500. She changed hands twice more before she was surveyed, condemned, and hulked in 1840

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The East Indiaman Asia, William John Huggins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asia_(East_Indiaman)


1816 - HMS Bermuda (10) wrecked near the Tampico Bar, Gulf of Mexico.

HMS Bermuda (1808) was a 10-gun brig-sloop built by John Pelham of Frindsbury and launched 1808; she was wrecked 16 November 1816, with the loss of one life.


1844 – launch of French Poursuivante at Toulon – deleted 31 December 1864.

Poursuivante class (50-gun type, 1827 design by Louis-Charles Barrallier):
  • Poursuivante, (launched 16 November 1844 at Toulon) – deleted 31 December 1864.
  • Zénobie, (launched 29 July 1847 at Toulon) – fitted as steam frigate 1857 – deleted 7 August 1868.
  • Sibylle, (launched 7 November 1847 at Toulon) – deleted 13 May 1881.

1874 – Birth of Alexander Kolchak, Russian admiral and explorer (d. 1920)

Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak KB (Russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Колча́к; 16 November [O.S. 4 November] 1874 – 7 February 1920) was an Imperial Russian admiral, military leader and polar explorer who served in the Imperial Russian Navy, who fought in the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. During the Russian Civil War, he established an anti-communist government in Siberia—later the Provisional All-Russian Government—and was recognised as the "Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces" by the other leaders of the White movement from 1918 to 1920. His government was based in Omsk, in southwestern Siberia.

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For 2 years, Kolchak was Russia's internationally recognized head of state. However, his effort to unite the White Movement failed; Kolchak refused to consider autonomy for ethnic minorities and refused to cooperate with non-Bolshevik leftists, heavily relying on outside aid. Relying on such only boosted Red morale due to Kolchak being seen as a "Western Puppet". As his White forces fell apart, he was betrayed and captured by the Czechoslovak Legion who handed him over to local Socialists-Revolutionaries, soon resulting in Bolsheviks executing him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Kolchak


1907 – Cunard Line's RMS Mauretania, sister ship of RMS Lusitania, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City.


RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. The ship was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917.

The ship was a holder of the Blue Riband appellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing and was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of her sister ship Mauretania. The Cunard Line launched Lusitania in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. She sank on her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing.

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In the early 20th century German shipping lines were aggressive competitors in the transatlantic trade. In the face of the competition, Cunard responded by trying to outdo them in speed, capacity, and luxury. Cunard used assistance from the British Admiralty to build Lusitania, with the convit that the ship was available as a light merchant cruiser in time of war. Lusitania had gun mounts for deck cannons, but no guns were ever installed.

Both Lusitania and Mauretania were fitted with revolutionary new turbine engines that enabled them to maintain a service speed of 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph). They were equipped with lifts, wireless telegraph, and electric light, and provided 50% more passenger space than any other ship; the first class decks were noted for their sumptuous furnishings.

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The Royal Navy had blockaded Germany at the start of World War I. The UK declared the entire North Sea a war zone in the autumn of 1914 and mined the approaches; in the spring of 1915 all food imports for Germany were declared contraband. When RMS Lusitania left New York for Britain on 1 May 1915, German submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom a war zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed newspaper advertisements warning people of the dangers of sailing on Lusitania.

On the afternoon of 7 May, a German U-boat torpedoed Lusitania, 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared war zone. A second, unexplained, internal explosion, likely munitions she was carrying, sent her to the seabed in 18 minutes, with the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew.

Because the Germans sank, without warning, what was a completely defenceless, officially non-military ship, killing almost a thousand civilians, many of whom were children, they were accused of breaching the internationally recognised Cruiser Rules. It had become more dangerous for submarines to give warning with the British introduction of Q-ships in 1915 with concealed deck guns. (Lusitania had been fitted with 6-inch gun mounts in 1913, although she was unarmed at the time of her sinking.)

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The Germans justified treating Lusitania as a naval vessel because she was carrying hundreds of tons of war munitions, therefore making her a legitimate military target, and argued that British merchant ships had violated the Cruiser Rules from the very beginning of the war. The Cruiser Rules were obsolete by 1915. RMS Lusitania was regularly transporting war munitions, she operated under the control of the Admiralty, she could be converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser to join the war, her identity had been disguised and she flew no flags. She was a non-neutral vessel in a declared war zone, with orders to evade capture and ram challenging submarines.

The sinking caused a storm of protest in the United States because 128 American citizens were among the dead. The sinking helped shift public opinion in the United States against Germany and was a factor in the United States' declaration of warnearly two years later. After World War I, successive British governments maintained that there were no munitions on board Lusitania, and the Germans were not justified in treating the ship as a naval vessel. In 1982, the head of the British Foreign Office's North America department finally admitted that there is a large amount of ammunition in the wreck, some of which is highly dangerous and poses a safety risk to salvage teams.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1743 – Launch of French Tonnant, 80-guns at Toulon, design by François Coulomb the Younger


Tonnant was an 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

She was the flagship of the French fleet at the Second battle of Cape Finisterre, and later took part in the Battle of Quiberon Bay, and in the American War of Independence.

She was broken up in 1780.

Construction
Constructed in Toulon between 1740 and 1744, it was armed with 80 cannons.


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French battleship Intrépide fighting against several British ships, by Pierre-Julien Gilbert

Involvements
It was the flagship of Louis XV's fleet, and thus served as Admiral vessel to Marquis de l'Estenduère during the Second battle of Cape Finisterre in 1747. During this naval battle, eight French vessels were sacrificed when they took on the fourteen British ships by Admiral Hawke, to protect the merchant ships. The Tonnant was involved in fierce combat. Partly dismasted, it escaped by being towed by the Intrépide of Vaudreuil, who crossed British lines to secure the ship.

The Tonnant also participated at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759; on board was the Chevalier de Bauffremont. It escaped and took refuge at Rochefort.

It was refurbished in 1770, and participated in the campaign of Admiral Estaing in America in 1778–1779. It was present during the attack on Newport in 1778 and at the Battle of Grenada on 6 July 1779. It finished its naval career in 1780.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Tonnant_(1740)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1800 - Boats of HMS Captain (74), HMS Magicienne (32), HMS Nile (12) and HMS Suwarrow (10) destroyed French corvette Reolaise (20) in Port Navalo.


On 17 November, Captain Sir Richard Strachan in Captain chased a French convoy in to the Morbihan where it sheltered under the protection of shore batteries and the 20-gun corvette Réolaise. Lieutenant Argles skillful maneuvered Nile, as the first British vessel up, and kept the corvette from the north shore. Magicienne was then able to force the corvette onto the shore at Port Navale, though she got off again. The hired armed cutter Suworow then towed in four boats with Lieutenant Hennah of Captain and a cutting-out party of seamen and marines. Nile and the hired armed cutter Lurcher towed in four more boats from Magicienne. Although the cutting-out party landed under heavy fire of grape and musketry, it was able to set the corvette on fire; shortly thereafter she blew up. Only one British seaman, a crewman from Suworow, was killed; seven men from Captain were wounded. However, Suworow's sails and rigging were so badly cut up that Captain had to tow her. Nile captured a merchant vessel that was then burnt.


During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic WarsThe British Royal Navy employed at least two cutters designated His Majesty's hired armed cutter Nile.

The first hired armed cutter Nile was of 13682⁄94 tons (burthen}. She carried ten 12-pounder carronades and two 6-pounder bow guns. Her contract ran from 29 March 1799 to 21 November 1801. From at least May her commander was Lieutenant George Argles.

The hired armed cutter Black Joke was a cutter that served the Royal Navy from 12 January 1795 to 19 October 1801. In 1799 she was renamed Suworow, and under that name she captured numerous prizes before she was paid off after the Treaty of Amiens.

His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Lurcher was a 12-gun cutter that served the Royal Navy from 15 August 1795 until 15 January 1801 when a French privateer captured her in the Channel.
On 6 June 1793, the cutter Lurcher, of 100 tons burthen, eight 3 and 4-pounder guns, and under the command of Christopher Heayott, received a Letter of Marque

HMS Captain was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 November 1787 at Limehouse. She served during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before being placed in harbour service in 1799. An accident caused her to burn and founder in 1813. Later that year she was raised and broken up.

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The 'Captain' capturing the 'San Nicolas' and the 'San José' at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797

Magicienne was a frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. The British captured her in 1781 and she served as HMS Maginienne with the Royal Navy until her crew burned her in 1810 to prevent her capture after she grounded at Isle de France (now Mauritius). During her service with the Royal Navy she captured several privateers and participated in the Battle of San Domingo.

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HMS Magicienne and HMS Acasta and the Battle of San Domingo


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hired_armed_cutter_Nile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Magicienne_(1778)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Captain_(1787)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hired_armed_cutter_Lurcher
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hired_armed_cutter_Black_Joke
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1804 – Launch of French Achille, a Téméraire-class 74-gun French ship of the line built at Rochefort in 1803 after plans by Jacques-Noël Sané


Achille was a Téméraire-class 74-gun French ship of the line built at Rochefort in 1803 after plans by Jacques-Noël Sané.

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Under the command of Captain Louis Gabriel Deniéport, she sailed at the vanguard of the French Fleet on 20 October 1805, just before the Battle of Trafalgar, and she was the first Franco-Spanish ship to sight the English fleet, around 6 p.m.

The next day, at the Battle of Trafalgar, the Franco-Spanish fleet veered to form a line of battle, and Achille found herself at the rear of the line. At the start of the battle she joined Aigle, Neptune and Fougueux, in engaging the second ship in the British lee column, HMS Belleisle. Belleisle was soon completely dismasted, unable to manoeuvre and largely unable to fight, as her sails blinded her batteries, but kept flying her flag for 45 minutes until the other British ships behind her in the column came to her rescue.

As San Ildefonso surrendered to HMS Defence, Deniéport took advantage of a light wind to attempt to fill the gap in the line. She then found herself trapped between HMS Defianceand HMS Dreadnought, losing all of her rigging save for her lower masts.

At 1:00 p.m, Ensign Arley was killed, followed around 1:30 by the first officer, Commander Montalembert. Captain Deniéport had his leg partly shot off at 2:30, and was killed shortly after refusing to leave his station. With most officers incapacitated, command went to Ensign Jouan, who was killed after 15 minutes. He was replaced by Ensign Cauchard.

By this time Achille was slowly sinking, but still managed to cut off Dreadnought's main-mast and fore-mast. At 4:00, HMS Prince joined in. After 15 minutes, a fire broke out in Achille's mizzen top. The next broadside against her brought her blazing main mast down, engulfing the ship in flames. Knowing that her opponent's fate was sealed, Richard Grindall, the Prince's captain, ceased firing and wore round to clear Achille before placing boats in the water to rescue the French seamen, as Achille's crew attempted to abandon ship. This proved hazardous as Achille's abandoned but loaded guns were set off by the intense heat now raging below decks. 158 French sailors were saved.

The fires eventually reached her magazine and she blew up spectacularly at 5:45 p.m., taking 480 with her, and foundered quickly, her colours high, marking the end of the battle. An officer serving in HMS Defence wrote:

"It was a sight the most awful and grand that can be conceived. In a moment the hull burst into a cloud of smoke and fire. A column of vivid flame shot up to an enormous height in the atmosphere and terminated by expanding into an immense globe, representing for a few seconds, a prodigious tree in flames, specked with many dark spots, which the pieces of timber and bodies of men occasioned while they were suspended in the clouds."​

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The painting combines events from several times during the battle. Nelson's famous signal "England expects..." flies from the Victory(11:50); the top-mizzenmast falls (13:00); the Achille is on fire in the background (late afternoon) and the Redoutable sinks in the foreground (following day).
Turner shows the Victory flying her signal flags from the main-mast, although in actuality they would have been flown from the mizzen-mast and were replaced with the signal for "engage the enemy more closely" once the battle commenced.
This is Turner’s only work by ‘royal command’ and the largest and most publicly controversial painting of his career. George IV gave him the commission late in 1822 on the advice of Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy. It was to form a naval pair with Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg’s 1795 view of The Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794, in a patriotic post-war redecoration of the State Rooms at St James’s Palace. Lawrence and George Jones – both Turner’s friends – were also represented, the former by his portrait of King George III and the latter by paintings of Wellington’s victories at Vittoria and Waterloo. Turner did an unusual amount of practical research for this work, which is his most complex tribute to Nelson, of whom he was a great admirer. He already had sketches of 'Victory', made on her return to England with Nelson’s body in December 1805 for his earlier 'The Battle of Trafalgar', painted in 1806-08. For this picture he borrowed a plan of the ship from the Admiralty and asked the marine artist J. C. Schetky, at Portsmouth, to make further sketches of her there. Also unusually, he did two preparatory oil studies (now in the Tate). The finished work combines a number of incidents from different times in the action, within a more symbolic conception. Nelson’s presence, mortally wounded, is only implied in the highlighted crowd around 'Victory’s' mainmast. This powerful absence is prefigured by the smallness of Nelson’s figure, and those around him, beneath similarly towering masts, in the 1806-08 picture. The small human scale is also a response to de Loutherbourg’s painting, since both in different ways contrast a mass of vulnerable figures with the great floating fortresses in which they are contesting national dominance on a mutually hostile sea. In 'The Harbours of England' (1856, p. 16) Ruskin grasped this elemental component when he likened the uncontrollability of the ship’s sails, as Turner shows them, to ‘as many thunderclouds’, most of 'Victory’s' falling with her foremast and at the same time as Nelson. Also symbolically, the falling mast bears his white vice-admiral’s flag, while the code flags spelling ‘d-u-t-y’ – both the last word of his famous Trafalgar signal and the last coherent thought he spoke (‘Thank God I have done my duty’) – are coming down from the mainmast. On the right is the French 'Redoutable', from which Nelson was shot, surrendered and sinking, although she in fact went down in the storm after the battle. British seamen in the foreground boats raise a cheer, unaware of the tragedy behind in 'Victory', herself shown on an exaggerated scale as a dominating symbol of British sea power. Other men try to save friends and foes alike from a darkly heaving sea, in which a tangle of floating rigging resembles a monster’s head and a Union flag is spread out above, as if to cover the fallen. Below the surface loom fragments of Nelson’s motto, ‘Palmam qui meruit ferat’. This can translate as ‘Let him who has earned it bear the Palm’, or, in the circumstances, ‘the price of glory is death’. That the cost is equal for the common sailor as much as the admiral is thrust into the viewer’s face by the dead seaman arching out backwards from the picture plane, in the centre, at what would have been original eye level in St James’s Palace. In imposing recession beyond 'Victory' on the left are the Spanish four-decker 'Santissima Trinidad' and the 'Bucentaure', flagship of Admiral Villeneuve, overall commander of the enemy Combined Fleet. Further left, the French 'Achille', 74 guns, is on fire with the bow of the 'Neptune' just coming into the frame. Her sister the 'Fighting Temeraire' , as Turner called her in his famous picture of 1839 is on the far right, lost in smoke apart from her white ensign. On delivery in 1824 the painting provoked court criticism for its non-chronological approach to Nelson’s victory, and its powerful allusions to the blood price of Britain’s triumph, at Trafalgar and more generally in becoming the world’s dominant sea power. Ambassadors used to classically heroic treatments are said to have sneered at it and seamen, including Sir Thomas Hardy, 'Victory’s' captain, have always criticized it on technical grounds. Turner himself later considered the picture spoilt by the eleven unpaid days that he spent at St James’s adjusting it to the views of Admiralty men and he credited the King’s naval brother, the Duke of Clarence (William IV from 1830), with the only sensible comments, despite a sharp exchange with him at the time. While George IV, when Prince of Wales, had acquired the cooler and more conventionally theatrical de Loutherbourg in Carlton House, Turner’s fierily spectacular but ambivalent pendant proved an embarrassment at St James’s. It was also probably mismatched there – at least to the King’s polished taste – with the adjacent works by Jones and his favourite portraitist, Lawrence. In late 1829 he presented it, with the de Loutherbourg, as his final gifts to the Naval Gallery at Greenwich Hospital. It has been at Greenwich ever since, and remains to some extent a focus of recurring division between ‘sea dogs’ and art historians, admirers of Nelson and of Turner.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/12057.html#DBakeFOUlrblmYUy.99

Achille in art
She figures on The Battle of Trafalgar by J. M. W. Turner.

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A 1⁄33 scale model is on display in Paris at the Musée de la Marine.

The rescue of a female member of her crew named Jeannette after the explosion was the inspiration for the coloured engraving Anecdote At the Battle of Trafalgar. It was engraved by M Dubourg and coloured by William Heath.

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Anecdote At the Battle of Trafalgar. A highly fictionalised depiction of a frenchwoman named Jeannette being pulled from the water by British sailors after the explosion of the French ship Achille


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(Updated, June 2016). This panorama was originally mounted as a complete circle about 10 feet 6 inches (3.2m) across. Only a few spectators at a time would have been able to view it, by stepping up into the centre from below. It was probably lit by daylight from above, round the edges of an inner masking top, with the bottom also masked to create the illusion that the viewer was standing in the middle of the battle. The episodes read from right to left: · Cadiz harbour, with the combined Franco-Spanish fleet emerging · A stern view of Nelson’s double-column order of battle advancing to intercept the enemy. Victory (with three stern galleries) is at the head of the left or weather line · The French Achille on fire, a blaze which started about 4.30 p.m. until the ship blew up about 5.45 p.m. The schooner Pickle which brought back news of the battle is on her left and the panorama as a whole has unusually good representation of the smaller vessels in the fleet · Nelson shot on the quarterdeck of Victory, from the Redoutable (seen stern-to on the right) about 1.15 p.m. The individuals around Nelson are intended as portraits, though none are close likenesses. Dr Beatty and Captain Hardy are to his right. The Royal Marine behind and supporting him is Sergeant Secker, with the Revd Scott to the left and two seamen carrying the body of Captain Adair of the Marines, further left. This is a miniature version of the very large illusionistic circular panoramas invented by Robert Barker, whose son Henry exhibited a version of Trafalgar off Leicester Square, London, in 1806. William Heath was an artist noted for military subjects and ‘penny-plain, tuppence-coloured’ theatrical portraits. He was previously thought to be an illegitimate son of the engraver James Heath though known family connection with other artists of the name has now been discounted, but the Nelson scene here is partly based on James Heath's highly successful print of 1811 from Benjamin West’s painting, 'The Death of Lord Nelson'. It also owes something to Samuel Drummond’s version. Like West, Heath includes Beatty and Scott, who were not on deck when Nelson was shot. Why this panorama was painted is still unknown. It may have been as a promotional attraction in one of London’s print shops and is the only known surviving early panorama of Trafalgar. A full account of Heath's career ('William Heath..."The man wots got the whip hand of 'em all") by Julie Mellby appeared in the 'British Art Journal', vol xvi, no.3, pp. 3-19 (2016) but its brief mention of the Trafalgar panorama (based on its loan to an exhibition in 1988) showed no indication of its whereabouts. It has been in the NMM collection since 1959.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Achille_(1803)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Trafalgar_(painting)
 
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1804 – Launch of HMS Hibernia, 110 gun first rate ship of the line


HMS Hibernia was a 110-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was launched at Plymouth dockyard on 17 November 1804, and was the only ship built to her draught, designed by Sir John Henslow.

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for Ville de Paris (1795), a 100-gun First Rate, three-decker. The plan was later used for Hibernia (1804), a 100-gun First Rate, three-decker, prior to being recalled, when she was redesigned and lengthened by 11ft. The plan also includes the outline of the circular stern and other alterations undertaken on Hibernia during her Large Repair at Portsmouth Dockyard between 1819 and 1825.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/79852.html#YEQRiCvEaHRQeKh5.99

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the framing profile (disposition) for 'Hibernia' (1804), a 110-gun, First Rate, three-decker as she was originally designed. The plan has been altered by having an additional piece of paper inserted to take into account her lengthening by 11ft 2inches in 1795. Signed John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806] and William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793-1813].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/79801.html#0yy1XjM5h1Lj0fLD.99

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Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the wales for the starboard profile for 'Hibernia' (1804), a 110-gun, First Rate, three-decker. It also indicates the planking below the lower deck gunports in faint pencil. This plan may have been drawn while 'Hibernia' underwent a large repair at Portsmouth Dockyard between December 1819 and October 1825.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/79800.html#R3IEKayVBgrmgYpb.99

Between 1807 and 1808, Hibernia, under the command of Sir William Sidney Smith, led the British escort of the Portuguese Royal Family during the transfer of the Portuguese Court to Brazil.

Hibernia was flagship of the British Mediterranean Fleet from 1816 until 1855, when she became the flagship for the Royal Navy's base at Malta and stationed in Grand Harbour.[citation needed] She remained in this role until she was sold in 1902.

After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, HMS Hibernia was used in the service of the British Empire in other ways, such as to transport convicts to the colony of New South Wales. In 1818-1819, for example, the ship carried 160 male convicts to Sydney from Portsmouth sailing on 20 November and arriving 18 June. Also on board as passengers were the first Minister of St James' Church, Sydney, Richard Hill and his wife.

The ten-day court-martial of the surviving officers and crewmen of the battleship HMS Victoria for the loss of their ship in a 22 June 1893 collision with the battleship HMS Camperdown was held on Hibernia's deck. The proceedings began on 17 July 1893.

Hibernia was sold in 1902 and broken up. Her timber ended up being used to fire bakeries in Malta, leading to an outbreak of lead poisoning on the island.

Her figurehead is now displayed at the Malta Maritime Museum, which is housed in the former Royal Naval Bakery building in Birgu, Malta.

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Figurehead of the HMS Hibernia (1804).

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Scale: Unknown. A model of a the stern of HMS HIbernia (1804) made entirely in wood and painted in realistic colours. The hull below the wales is depicted in frame with the individual frames painted. The wales, hull above the waterline and stern and counter are painted black with three broad white stripes running along the gun decks. The poop deck section, bulwarks, taff raiil and floors and walls of the two open galleries are painted dark green. The section face is open to show the main deck beams. Ten gun ports are shown on the port and starboard sides, their inner faces painted red.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/68204.html#iXotCFapKrifQTwv.99

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Scale: 1:16. A model of the starboard side of the stern of HMS Hibernia (1804) made entirely in wood with metal fittings and painted in realistic colours. The hull is painted black externally with the three lower gundecks picked out in a creamy-white horizontal line. The gunports of which there are thirteen are painted red on the inside edge. The stern galleries which show the improved round construction are on three levels and consist of fourteen glazed panels some of which are painted on a solid background whilst others are missing, all of which are separated by three horizontal galleries. At the stern on the centreline just above the stern post is a half section of the rudder head housing. Internally the model is painted a creamy white throughout and includes details of the deck beams, pillars, hanging and lodging knees together with five flat sheets of wood illustrating deck planking.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/68232.html#dIQqobcRG4xSE5xZ.99


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hibernia_(1804)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-318801;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=H
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1874 - Cospatrick, a wooden three-masted full-rigged sailing ship, caught fire south of the Cape of Good Hope. Only three of the 472 persons on board survived the disaster, which is often considered the worst in New Zealand's history.


Cospatrick was a wooden three-masted full-rigged sailing ship that caught fire south of the Cape of Good Hope on 17 November 1874, while on a voyage from Gravesend, England, to Auckland, New Zealand. Only three of the 472 persons on board survived the disaster, which is often considered the worst in New Zealand's history.

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History
Cospatrick was a Blackwall Frigate of 1,199 tons built at Moulmein (now Mawlamyaing) in Burma in 1856 for prominent London shipowner Duncan Dunbar. Following Dunbar's death in 1862, the ship was sold to Smith, Fleming & Co. of London. Cospatrick spent most of her career trading between England and India carrying passengers, troops and cargo. In 1863, Cospatrick was engaged with other ships to lay a telegraphic cable in the Persian Gulf. She had also made two voyages to Australia before being sold to Shaw, Savill & Co. of London in 1873. Cospatrick then became one of many ships owned by this company that carried cargo and emigrants from England to New Zealand.

Destruction
Cospatrick sailed from Gravesend for Auckland on 11 September 1874 with 433 passengers and 44 crew under Captain Alexander Elmslie. The passengers included 429 assisted emigrants, of which 125 were women and 126 were children. During the course of the voyage, eight infants died and one was born (plus another still-birth).

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The voyage was otherwise uneventful until about 12.45 a.m. on 17 November - about twelve hours after the vessel's position was determined as 400 miles (640 km) south-west of the Cape of Good Hope. The ship's second mate, Henry Macdonald, later recounted that he had retired at midnight, and was awoken half an hour later by a cry of "Fire!". He hurried onto the deck, and found that a fire had broken out in the boatswain's store, where oakum, tar, paint and ropes were stored. The crew was summoned to man the fire hoses, while the Captain and crew tried, but failed, to turn the ship before the wind, to take the smoke and flames forward and to contain the fire.

The fire rapidly grew out of control and panic ensued. Although there were five lifeboats on board capable of carrying 187 people, only two were successfully launched. These two boats stayed together until the night of 21 November, when one of the boats went missing during a storm. The remaining boat was picked up by British Sceptre on 27 November, by which time there were only five men left alive, who had been reduced to drinking the blood and eating the livers of their dead companions. They had drifted about 500 miles (800 km) north-east from where Cospatrick had sunk. Two of the survivors died shortly after being rescued.

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Aftermath
An inquiry found it most likely that the fire had been caused by members of the crew or passengers broaching cargo in the hold using a naked light, thus igniting the large quantity of flammable cargo including tar, oil, varnish and pitch. Another idea was spontaneous combustion. The lack of lifeboats and inability to launch them successfully at sea also caused public outrage, but little was done until after the loss of the Titanic in 1912.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cospatrick_(ship)
http://www.theprow.org.nz/yourstory/the-adamant-and-the-cospatrick/#.W_AiRpNKhPY
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1898 – Launch of HMS Formidable (1898)


HMS Formidable, the third of four ships of that name to serve in the Royal Navy, was the lead ship of her class of pre-dreadnought battleships. The ship was laid down in March 1898, was launched in November that year, and was completed in September 1901. Problems with the contractors that supplied her machinery delayed her commissioning until 1904. Formidable served initially with the Mediterranean Fleet, transferring to the Channel Fleet in 1908. In 1912, she was assigned to the 5th Battle Squadron, which was stationed at Nore.

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Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the squadron conducted operations in the English Channel, and was based at Sheerness to guard against a possible German invasion. In the first days of the war, the 5th Battle Squadron covered the crossing of the British Expeditionary Force to France. On 31 December, the squadron was conducting training exercises in the English Channel, and despite the risk of German submarines, was without anti-submarine protection; the German U-24 stalked the ships during the day and in the early hours of 1 January 1915, torpedoed Formidable twice, sinking her with very heavy loss of life.

Design
Main article: Formidable-class battleship

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Line-drawing of the Formidableclass

The design for the Formidable class was prepared in 1897; it was an incremental improvement over the preceding Majestic and Canopusclasses. Formidable adopted the larger size of the Majestics, while taking the stronger Krupp armour of the Canopus design. In addition, the new design incorporated longer (and thus more powerful) main and secondary guns and an improved hull form. These characteristics produced a ship with better armour protection than either earlier class, the same high speed of Canopus.

Formidable was 431 feet 9 inches (131.60 m) long overall, with a beam of 75 ft (23 m) and a draft of 25 ft 11 in (7.90 m). She displaced14,500 tonnes (14,300 long tons) normally and up to 15,800 tonnes (15,600 long tons) fully loaded. Her crew numbered 780 officers and enlisted men. The Formidable-class ships were powered by a pair of 3-cylinder triple-expansion engines, with steam provided by twenty Belleville boilers. The boilers were trunked into two funnels located amidships. The Formidable-class ships had a top speed of 18 knots(33 km/h; 21 mph) from 15,000 indicated horsepower (11,000 kW).

Formidable had four 12-inch (305 mm) 40-calibre guns mounted in twin gun turrets fore and aft; these guns were mounted in circular barbettes that allowed all-around loading or elevation. The ships also mounted twelve 6-inch (152 mm) 45-calibre guns mounted in casemates, in addition to ten 12-pounder guns and six 3-pounder guns. As was customary for battleships of the period, she was also equipped with four 18-inch (460 mm) torpedo tubes submerged in the hull.

Formidable had an armoured belt that was 9 inches (229 mm) thick; the transverse bulkheads on either end of the belt were 9 to 12 in (229 to 305 mm) thick. Her main battery turrets sides were 8 to 10 in (203 to 254 mm) thick, atop 12 in (305 mm) barbettes, and the casemate battery was protected with 6 in of Krupp steel. Her conning tower had 14 in (356 mm) thick sides as well. She was fitted with two armoured decks, 1 and 3 in (25 and 76 mm) thick, respectively.

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Service history
HMS Formidable was laid down at Portsmouth Dockyard on 21 March 1898 and launched on 17 November 1898; she was, at the time of her launching, very incomplete, and she was launched primarily to clear the slipway so construction could begin on the battleship London. Formidable was completed in September 1901, but due to difficulties with machinery contractors her readiness for service was delayed significantly, and she was not commissioned for another three years. Formidable commissioned on 10 October 1904 at Portsmouth Dockyard for service in the Mediterranean Fleet. She began a refit at Malta in 1904 which lasted until April 1905, and in April 1908 transferred to the Channel Fleet.

Paid off at Chatham Dockyard on 17 August 1908, Formidable began another refit and recommissioned on 20 April 1909 for service in the 1st Division, Home Fleet stationed at the Nore. On 29 May, she transferred to the Atlantic Fleet. In May 1912, Formidable was reduced to a nucleus crew and transferred to the 5th Battle Squadron in the Second Fleet, Home Fleet, again at the Nore, where she served until the outbreak of war in August 1914. Hard steaming during this service led to her developing serious machinery problems.

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World War I
At the beginning of the First World War, Formidable and the 5th Battle Squadron were based at Portland and assigned to the Channel Fleet to defend the English Channel. After covering the safe transportation of the British Expeditionary Force to France in August 1914, Formidable took part in the transportation of the Portsmouth Marine Battalion to Ostend on 25 August. On 14 November, Formidable and the other ships of the 5th Battle Squadron were rebased at Sheerness because of concern that a German invasion of Great Britain was in the offing. The squadron was relieved by Duncan-class battleships of the 6th Battle Squadron and transferred to Portland on 30 December.

Loss
Under the command of Vice-Admiral Commanding, Channel Fleet, Sir Lewis Bayly, the 5th Battle Squadron spent 31 December participating in gunnery exercises off the Isle of Portland, supported by the light cruisers Topaze and Diamond. The squadron received no escort of destroyers for the operation. After the exercises, that night the fleet remained at sea on patrol even though submarine activity had been reported in the area. Visibility that night was good, though the sea was rough enough to make detection of a submarine difficult. Bayly suspected no danger from submarines, and so steamed his ships in line ahead formation at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). Formidable was the last battleship in the line, followed only by the two cruisers. Unknown to the British, the German submarine U-24 stalked the squadron while it was exercising all afternoon, trying to find a suitable attack position.

At around 02:20 on 1 January 1915, U-24 launched a torpedo at Formidable, striking her on the starboard side abreast of the forward funnel. Formidable's commander, Captain Loxley, hoped to save the ship by bringing her close to shore; the other British ships were at that point unaware of what had happened, but after Formidable turned out of line, Topaze increased speed to determine what she was doing. By the time Topaze closed with Formidable twenty minutes later, the latter vessel had already taken on a list of 20 degrees to starboard, and Loxley had issued the order to abandon ship. Men attempting to save the vessel remained aboard and through counter-flooding reduced the list, though Formidable was by then very low in the water.

At around 03:05, U-24 launched another torpedo at the stricken Formidable, hitting her again on the starboard side close to her bow. Topaze, joined by Diamond, began the rescue effort, but the heavy seas made it very difficult to bring men aboard. Formidable remained afloat for another hour and forty minutes, before at 04:45 began to capsize and sink by the bow. She remained afloat, with her stern in the air, for a few minutes before sinking. Captain Loxley was last seen on the bridge calmly overseeing the evacuation of the ship. Diamond picked up thirty-seven officers and crew from the water. The Brixham trawler Provident, (Skipper William Pillar), picked up 73 members of Formidable's crew from the battleship's launch at around midday, while Formidable's pinnace managed to reach Lyme Regis after 22 hours at sea, saving another 47 men. A total of 35 officers and 512 men were killed in the sinking.

An inquiry from the Admiralty into the sinking determined that the risk of conducting training exercises in the Channel without destroyer protection was excessive and should not be continued. Bayly was relieved of command for failing to take adequate precautions against submarine attack.

Wreck site
Formidable's wreck site is designated as a controlled site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.


https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Formidable_(1898)
http://www.burtonbradstock.org.uk/History/Wrecks off Burton Bradstock/HMS Formidable.htm
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1914 - SMS Friedrich Carl was a German armored cruiser mined and sunk


SMS Friedrich Carl was a German armored cruiser built in the early 1900s for the Imperial German Navy. She was the second ship of the Prinz Adalbert class. Friedrich Carl was built in Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg. She was laid down in 1901, and completed in December 1903, at the cost of 15,665,000 Marks. She was armed with a main battery of four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns and was capable of a top speed of 20.4 kn (37.8 km/h; 23.5 mph).

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One of the Prinz Adalbert-class cruisers leading a line of ships

The ship served with the German fleet after her commissioning before being used as a torpedo training ship in 1909. In August 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, she was brought back to active service to act as Rear Admiral Behring's flagship in the Baltic Sea. Her wartime career was cut short on 17 November when she struck a pair of Russian mines off Memel at 55°41′N 20°11′ECoordinates:
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55°41′N 20°11′E. The mines caused fatal damage, but the ship sank slowly enough to permit the safe evacuation of most of the crew; only seven men were killed in the incident.

Design
Main article: Prinz Adalbert-class armored cruiser

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Line-drawing of Prinz Adalbert; the shaded areas represent the portions of the ship protected by armor

Friedrich Carl was the second member of the Prinz Adalbert class, which were ordered under the Second Naval Law of 1900. The law called for a force of fourteen armored cruisers that would be able to serve in Germany's colonial empire and scout for the main German fleet in home waters. The need to fill both roles was the result of budgetary limitations, which prevented Germany from building vessels specialized to each task. The Prinz Adalbert design was based on that of the previous armored cruiser, Prinz Heinrich, which incorporated a more powerful armament and more comprehensive armor protection.

Friedrich Carl was 126.5 m (415 ft) long overall, and she had a beam of 19.6 m (64 ft) and a draft of 7.43 m (24.4 ft) forward. She displaced 9,087 t (8,943 long tons; 10,017 short tons) as built and up to 9,875 t (9,719 long tons; 10,885 short tons) fully loaded. The ship was powered by three vertical triple expansion engines, with steam provided by fourteen coal-fired water-tube boilers. Her engines were rated at 17,000 metric horsepower (13,000 kW) and yielded a maximum speed of 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph), though she slightly exceeded these figures on speed trials. She carried up to 1,630 t (1,600 long tons; 1,800 short tons) of coal, which enabled a maximum range of up to 5,080 nautical miles (9,410 km; 5,850 mi) at a cruising speed of 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph). Her standard crew consisted of 35 officers and 551 enlisted men.

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The German Imperial Navy cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert (sistership) before 1914.

She was armed with four 21 cm (8.3 in) guns arranged in two twin gun turrets, one on either end of the superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of ten 15 cm (5.91 in) SK L/40 guns mounted in casemates in a two-storey arrangement amidships. She also carried twelve 8.8 cm (3.46 in) guns in both single pedestal mounts and casemates. Friedrich Carl was also equipped with four 45 cm (18 in) torpedo tubes submerged below the waterline, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside.

Friedrich Carl was protected by Krupp armor; her armored belt was 100 mm (3.9 in) thick amidships and reduced to 80 mm (3.1 in) forward and aft. The deck armor was 40 to 80 mm (1.6 to 3.1 in) thick, and her forward conning tower was 150 mm (5.9 in) thick. The main battery turrets had 150 mm thick sides and the casemate guns were protected with 100 mm of Krupp steel.

Service history
Construction through 1905

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Midsection of SMS Friedrich Carl in a miniature in the Deutsches Museum

Friedrich Carl was ordered under the provisional name Ersatz König Wilhelm and built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg under yard number 155.[3][Note 1] Her keel was laid down in August 1900 and she was launched on 21 June 1902. At the launching ceremony, Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia gave a speech; he was the son of the ship's namesake, Prince Friedrich Carl. Friedrich Leopold's wife, Louise Sophie, christened the ship. Fitting-out work followed, and in November 1903 a shipyard crew began builder's trials before she was moved to Wilhelmshaven to have her artillery installed. Work on the vessel was completed by 12 December 1903, the day she began sea trials; her first commander was Kapitän zur See (KzS—Captain at Sea) Johannes Merten.

Trials were interrupted in March 1904 when Friedrich Carl was tasked with escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamer SS König Albert on a trip to the Mediterranean Sea. On 12 March the ships left Bremerhaven and steamed to Vigo, Spain, where the Spanish king, Alfonso XIII, visited Friedrich Carl on 15 March. Three days later the ships arrived in Gibraltar, where they met the British Channel Squadron. They then proceeded to Naples, Italy by way of Mahón, where on 24 March Wilhelm II transferred to his yacht, Hohenzollern. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy visited the ship there before Friedrich Carl, Hohenzollern, and the dispatch boat Sleipner began a tour of Mediterranean ports. Friedrich Carl was in need of repairs, so she left Hohenzollern and Sleipner on 26 April and began the voyage back to Germany; she stopped in Venice, Italy, on 7 May and arrived back in Kiel on 17 May. There, she was assigned to the reconnaissance force of the Active Battle Fleet, taking the place of the protected cruiser Victoria Louise.

Beginning in June, Friedrich Carl joined II Squadron for a tour of Dutch, British, and Norwegian ports that lasted until August. During the voyage, Friedrich Carl had to tow two torpedo boats along with the coastal defense ship Odin and the torpedo boat S98 to Stavanger, Norway. On returning to Germany, the German fleet conducted its annual maneuvers in August and September in the North and Baltic Seas. Following the conclusion of the maneuvers in September, Merten was replaced as the ship's commander by Fregattenkapitän (FK—Frigate Captain) Hugo von Cotzhausen. The ship's sea trials were also officially ended at that point. In November, the crew briefly staged a mutinyagainst Cotzhausen, citing his inept leadership, though he remained in command. KAdm Gustav Schmidt, who was the commander of reconnaissance forces of the Active Battlefleet, transferred from Prinz Heinrich, making Friedrich Carl the new flagship of the reconnaissance squadron.

From January to February 1905, Friedrich Carl participated in training exercises in the Baltic. While cruising north of the Great Belt, she struck a submerged shipwreck but suffered no significant damage in the accident. Beginning on 23 March, she again accompanied Wilhelm II, this time aboard the HAPAG steamship SS Hamburg, for another voyage to the Mediterranean. While the ships were in Lisbon, they were visited by King Carlos I of Portugal. German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow sent a message to Wilhelm II in Lisbon suggesting he visit Morocco, and on 31 March Friedrich Carl and Hamburg arrived in Tangier, where they encountered the French cruisers Du Chayla and Linois. Wilhelm II made a speech where he supported Moroccan independence, which led to the First Moroccan Crisis. The following day, the two German vessels steamed to Gibraltar, where Friedrich Carl accidentally collided with the British pre-dreadnought battleship HMS Prince George. During the cruise, Schmidt transferred to Prinz Heinrich while Friedrich Carl was abroad. On her return to Germany in June, she resumed her role as flagship, apart from during a maintenance period from 10 to 26 August.

1905–1915
In July, Friedrich Carl joined the rest of the fleet for a cruise in the North and Baltic Seas, during which she accidentally ran aground but was not damaged. She thereafter participated in squadron exercises in the Baltic. In February 1906, she went on a training cruise to Denmark. The new armored cruiser Yorck replaced Friedrich Carl as the squadron flagship in late March. Friedrich Carl in turn replaced Prinz Heinrich as the flagship of the deputy commander, Kommodore (Commodore) Raimund Winkler. She remained in this role only briefly, however, before the armored cruiser Roon took her place on 15 August. The autumn maneuvers of 1906 were conducted in Norwegian waters and the western Baltic. After the maneuvers, FK Franz von Hipper took command of the ship. Friedrich Carl resumed her role as the deputy commander flagship on 31 October when KzS Eugen Kalau vom Hofe came aboard the ship; she held the position until 5 March 1908. The year 1907 passed uneventfully for Friedrich Carl; she briefly served as the squadron flagship from 11 September to 28 October due to an accident with Yorck. Friedrich Carl went on a major training cruise into the Atlantic Ocean in early 1908 and on her return to Wilhelmshaven was decommissioned on 5 March for lengthy repairs.

On returning to service on 1 March 1909, KzS Friedrich Schultz assumed command of the ship, which was to be used as a torpedo test ship. In this role, she replaced the protected cruiser SMS Vineta; Schultz was also the commander of the Torpedo Testing Inspectorate. On 30 March, Friedrich Carl was assigned to the temporary Training and Testing Ship Unit for maneuvers that were conducted off the island of Rügen in April. The unit was dissolved on 24 April, and from mid-August to early September, Friedrich Carl participated in the autumn maneuvers as part of the Reconnaissance Group of the Reserve Fleet. The years 1910 and 1911 followed a similar training routing to that of 1909, though Schultz had been replaced by KzS Ernst Ritter von Mann und Edler von Tiechler as the ship's captain in September 1909 and by KAdm Wilhelm von Lans as commander of the Torpedo Testing Inspectorate on 19 December 1909. Tiechler was in turn replaced by FK Andreas Michelsen in September 1911; he held the command until the outbreak of World War I in July 1914.

In July 1911, Friedrich Carl conducted torpedo tests with the light cruiser Augsburg in Norwegian waters. The winter of 1911–1912 was particularly severe, and so in early 1912 Friedrich Carl was used to rescue merchant ships that had been trapped in the iced-over Baltic. That year, the Training and Testing Ship Unit was reactivated as the Training Squadron for exercises. KAdm Reinhard Koch replaced Lans on 1 October 1912 and kept Friedrich Carl as his flagship. During the autumn maneuvers that year, Friedrich Carl was assigned to II Scouting Group of what was now the High Seas Fleet. The training routine in 1913 and the first half of 1914 followed the same pattern as in previous years. On 6 April 1914, she ran aground off Swinemünde but was pulled free without damage. During the Kiel Week sailing regatta in July 1914, Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz came aboard Friedrich Carl to observe the festivities, which coincided with a visit from the British Royal Navy. While the British ambassador was visiting Tirpitz aboard the ship, news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrived. On 31 July, days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia but before Germany entered the war, Friedrich Carl went into drydock at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Kiel for repairs in preparation for the coming conflict

World War I
On 28 August, Friedrich Carl returned to service under the command of KzS Max Schlicht, though he held the position for just two months before being replaced by FK Loesch. Friedrich Carl was assigned to the Cruiser Division of the Baltic Sea, taking the place of the protected cruiser Freya, where she became the flagship of KAdm Robert Mischke. In late September, the division supported the laying of a defensive minefield off Langeland. The ship was transferred to the unit commanded by KAdm Ehler Behring, where she served as his flagship. At the time, the unit included the protected cruisers Vineta, Hertha, and Hansa and the light cruisers Augsburg, Thetis, and Lübeck, along with attendant torpedo boats and U-boats. The division was based in Neufahrwasser in Danzig. Friedrich Carl took part in a sortie into the Gulf of Finland on 24 October to sweep for Russian warships and British submarines that were operating in the area, though the Germans failed to locate any hostile vessels. By this time, the ship had been modified to carry seaplanes; she carried two planes provisionally and had no permanent modifications made to support them. On 30 October another patrol was carried out, again without success.

The wreck

In early November, Friedrich Carl was withdrawn for repairs, though these were completed by mid-November. In the meantime, the German naval command, which was aware that British submarines were operating in the Baltic Sea, had ordered Behring to attack the Russian port at Libau to prevent it from being used as a British submarine base. Friedrich Carl was assigned to the attack force, and left Memel on 16 November to bombard Russian positions around Libau; at 01:46 on 17 November, while 33 nautical miles (61 km; 38 mi) west of Memel, she struck a naval mine that had been laid by Russian destroyers in October. The ship's crew initially thought the shock of the explosion was from striking a submarine; they immediately altered course to return to Memel, at which point she struck a second mine at 01:57. She began to take on water, though she remained afloat for some time. At 6:20, Augsburg arrived on the scene and evacuated the crew, and Friedrich Carl was abandoned to sink, which she did at 07:15. Only seven or eight men were killed in the sinking.

In media
A heavily fictionalized depiction of the sinking of Friedrich Carl is portrayed in the Russian movie The Admiral, where Russian admiral Alexander Kolchak tricks the ship into a Russian minefield.


Full version with english subtitles


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Friedrich_Carl
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1914 – Launch of HMS Royal Oak (08), one of five Revenge-class battleships


HMS Royal Oak was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Launched in 1914 and completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland as part of the Grand Fleet. In peacetime, she served in the Atlantic, Home and Mediterranean fleets, more than once coming under accidental attack. The ship drew worldwide attention in 1928 when her senior officers were controversially court-martialled. Attempts to modernise Royal Oak throughout her 25-year career could not fix her fundamental lack of speed and by the start of the Second World War, she was no longer suited to front-line duty.

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HMS Royal Oak (08) in 1937.

On 14 October 1939, Royal Oak was anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland, when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47. Of Royal Oak's complement of 1,234 men and boys, 833 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The loss of the outdated ship—the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War—did little to affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its Allies, but the sinking had considerable effect on wartime morale. The raid made an immediate celebrity and war hero out of the U-boat commander, Günther Prien, who became the first German submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Before the sinking of Royal Oak, the Royal Navy had considered the naval base at Scapa Flow impregnable to submarine attack, and U-47's raid demonstrated that the German Navy was capable of bringing the war to British home waters. The shock resulted in rapid changes to dockland security and the construction of the Churchill Barriers around Scapa Flow.

The wreck of Royal Oak, a designated war grave, lies almost upside down in 100 feet (30 m) of water with her hull 16 feet (4.9 m) beneath the surface. In an annual ceremony to mark the loss of the ship, Royal Navy divers place a White Ensign underwater at her stern. Unauthorised divers are prohibited from approaching the wreck at any time under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986.

Design and description
Main article: Revenge-class battleship

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Illustration of HMS Revenge as she appeared in 1916

The Revenge-class ships were designed as slightly smaller, slower, and more heavily protected versions of the preceding Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. As an economy measure they were intended to revert to the previous practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914. Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by 9,000 shaft horsepower (6,700 kW) over the original specification.

Royal Oak had a length overall of 620 feet 7 inches (189.2 m), a beam of 88 feet 6 inches (27.0 m) and a deep draught of 33 feet 7 inches (10.2 m). She had a designed displacement of 27,790 long tons (28,240 t) and displaced 31,130 long tons (31,630 t) at deep load. She was powered by two sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from 18 Yarrow boilers. The turbines were rated at 40,000 shp (30,000 kW) and intended to reach a maximum speed of 23 knots (42.6 km/h; 26.5 mph). During her sea trials on 22 May 1916, the ship only reached a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) from 40,360 shp (30,100 kW).[2] She had a range of 7,000 nautical miles (12,964 km; 8,055 mi) at a cruising speed of 10 knots (18.5 km/h; 11.5 mph). Her crew numbered 909 officers and enlisted men in 1916.

The Revenge class was equipped with eight breech-loading (BL) 15-inch (381 mm) Mk I guns in four twin gun turrets, in two superfiring pairs fore and aft of the superstructure, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. Twelve of the fourteen BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk XII guns were mounted in casemates along the broadside of the vessel amidships; the remaining pair were mounted on the shelter deck and were protected by gun shields. Their anti-aircraft (AA) armament consisted of two quick-firing (QF) 3-inch (76 mm) 20 cwt Mk I[a] guns. The ships were fitted with four submerged 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, two on each broadside.

Royal Oak was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with 15-foot (4.6 m) rangefinders. One was mounted above the conning tower, protected by an armoured hood, and the other was in the spotting top above the tripod foremast. Each turret was also fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by 'X' turret as well. The secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in March 1917. A torpedo-control director with a 15-foot rangefinder was mounted at the aft end of the superstructure.

The ship's waterline belt consisted of Krupp cemented armour (KC) that was 13 inches (330 mm) thick between 'A' and 'Y' barbettes and thinned to 4 to 6 inches (102 to 152 mm) towards the ship's ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. Above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between 'A' and 'X' barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the waterline belt to 'A' and 'Y' barbettes. The gun turrets were protected by 11 to 13 inches (279 to 330 mm) of KC armour, except for the turret roofs which were 4.75–5 inches (121–127 mm) thick. The barbettes ranged in thickness from 6–10 inches (152–254 mm) above the upper deck, but were only 4 to 6 inches thick below it. The Revenge-class ships had multiple armoured decks that ranged from 1 to 4 inches (25 to 102 mm) in thickness. The main conning tower had 13 inches of armour on the sides with a 3-inch roof. The torpedo director in the rear superstructure had 6 inches of armour protecting it. After the Battle of Jutland, 1 inch of high-tensile steel was added to the main deck over the magazines and additional anti-flash equipment was added in the magazines.

The ship was fitted with flying-off platforms mounted on the roofs of 'B' and 'X' turrets in 1918, from which fighters and reconnaissance aircraft could launch. In 1934 the platforms were removed from the turrets and a catapult was installed on the roof of 'X' turret, along with a crane to recover a seaplane.

Major alterations

HMS_Royal_Oak_portside.jpg
Royal Oak at anchor after her 1924 refit

Royal Oak was extensively refitted between 1922 and 1924, when her anti-aircraft defences were upgraded by replacing the original three-inch AA guns with a pair of QF four-inch (102 mm) Mk V AA guns. A 30-foot (9.1 m) rangefinder was fitted in 'B' turret and a simple high-angle rangefinder was added above the bridge. Underwater protection improved by the addition of anti-torpedo bulges. They were designed to reduce the effect of torpedo detonations and improve stability at the cost of widening the ship's beam by over 13 feet (4 m). They increased her beam to 102 feet 1 inch (31.1 m), reduced her draught to 29 feet 6 inches (9.0 m), increased her metacentric height to 6.3 feet (1.9 m) at deep load, and all of the changes to her equipment increased her crew to a total of 1,188. Despite the bulges she was able to reach a speed of 21.75 knots (40.28 km/h; 25.03 mph). A brief refit in early 1927 saw the addition of two more four-inch AA guns and the removal of the six-inch guns from the shelter deck.[16] About 1931, a High-Angle Control System (HACS) Mk I director replaced the high-angle rangefinder on the spotting top. Two years later, the aft pair of torpedo tubes were removed.

The ship received a final refit between 1934 and 1936, when her deck armour was increased to 5 inches (12.7 cm) over the magazines and to 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) over the engine rooms. In addition to a general modernisation of the ship's systems, her anti-aircraft defences were strengthened by replacing the single mounts of the AA guns with twin mounts for the QF 4-inch Mark XVI gun and adding a pair of octuple mounts for two-pounder Mk VIII "pom-pom" guns to sponsons abreast the funnel. Two positions for "pom-pom" anti-aircraft directors were added on new platforms abreast and below the fire-control director in the spotting top. A HACS Mk III director replaced the Mk I in the spotting top and another replaced the torpedo director aft. A pair of quadruple mounts for Vickers .50 machine guns were added abreast the conning tower. The mainmast was reconstructed as a tripod to support the weight of a radio-direction finding office and a second High-Angle Control Station. The forward pair of submerged torpedo tubes were removed and four experimental 21-inch torpedo tubes were added above water forward of 'A' turret.

Construction and service
Royal Oak was laid down at Devonport Royal Dockyard on 15 January 1914. She was launched on 17 November, and after fitting-out, was commissioned on 1 May 1916 at a final cost of £2,468,269. Named after the oak tree in which Charles II hid following his defeat at the 1651 Battle of Worcester, she was the eighth vessel to bear the name Royal Oak, replacing a pre-dreadnought scrapped in 1914. Upon completion Royal Oak was assigned to the Third Division of the Fourth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet, under the command of Captain Crawford Maclachlan.

see her career at wikipedia......

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Oak_(08)
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1917 - Second Battle of Heligoland Bight


The Second Battle of Heligoland Bight, also called the Action in the Helgoland Bight was an inconclusive naval engagement fought between British and German squadrons on 17 November 1917 during the First World War.

Background
Following the German Navy's successful raid on the Scandinavian convoy on 17 October 1917, Admiral Sir David Beatty, Commander-in-Chief of the British Grand Fleet, was determined to retaliate. On 17 November 1917 a strong force of cruisers under Vice Admiral Trevylyan Napier was sent to attack German minesweepers, which were clearing a channel through British minefields in the Heligoland Bight. The intentions of the German force had been revealed by British Naval Intelligence, allowing the British to mount an ambush. The German sweepers were escorted by a group of cruisers and torpedo-boats under Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter.

HMS_Calypso.jpg
British light cruiser HMS CALYPSO.

The battle
The action began at 7.30 a.m., roughly 65 nautical miles west of Sylt, when HMS Courageous sighted the enemy. She opened fire at 7:37 a.m. Admiral Reuter, the German commander, with four light cruisers and eight destroyers, advanced to engage the Royal Navy units in order to cover the withdrawal of his minesweepers, all of which escaped except for the trawler Kehdingen,(GE) which was sunk. The battle thereafter developed into a stern chase as the German forces, skilfully using smoke-screens, withdrew south-east at their best speed, under fire from the pursuing British ships of the 1st Cruiser Squadron, the 1st and 6th Light Cruiser Squadrons, and, later, HMS Repulse (which had been detached from the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron and came up at high speed to join the battle). Both sides were hampered in their maneuvers by the presence of naval minefields.

At about the same time, the light cruisers came under fire from two German Kaiser-class battleships, SMS Kaiser and SMS Kaiserin which had come up in support of Reuter's ships; HMS Caledon was struck by one 30.5 cm (12.0 in) shell which did minimal damage; shortly thereafter, the British ships gave up the chase as they reached the edge of known minefields.

All personnel on the bridge of the light cruiser HMS Calypso, including her captain, Herbert Edwards, were killed by a 15 cm (5.9 in) shell. The battle cruiser HMS Repulsebriefly engaged the German ships at about 10:00, scoring a single hit on the light cruiser SMS Königsberg that ignited a major fire on board.

It was during this battle that Able Seaman John Henry Carless of HMS Caledon won a posthumous Victoria Cross for his bravery in manning a gun despite mortal wounds.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Heligoland_Bight
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
17 November 1921 - Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga launched


Kaga (加賀) was an aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and was named after the former Kaga Province in present-day Ishikawa Prefecture. Originally intended to be one of two Tosa-class battleships, Kaga was converted under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty to an aircraft carrier as the replacement for the battlecruiser Amagi, which had been damaged during the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. Kaga was rebuilt in 1933–35, increasing her top speed, improving her exhaust systems, and adapting her flight decks to more modern, heavier aircraft.

The ship figured prominently in the development of the IJN's carrier striking force doctrine, which grouped carriers together to give greater mass and concentration to their air power. A revolutionary strategic concept at the time, the employment of the doctrine was crucial in enabling Japan to attain its initial strategic goals during the first six months of the Pacific War.

1280px-Japanese_Navy_Aircraft_Carrier_Kaga.jpg
Imperial Japanese Navy Carrier Kaga: photo taken after her massive refitting. Its smokestack is directed downwards to extinguish the smoke with seawater.

Kaga's aircraft first supported Japanese troops in China during the Shanghai Incident of 1932 and participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s. With other carriers, she took part in the Pearl Harbor raid in December 1941 and the invasion of Rabaul in the Southwest Pacific in January 1942. The following month her aircraft participated in a combined carrier airstrike on Darwin, Australia, helping secure the conquest of the Dutch East Indies by Japanese forces. She missed the Indian Ocean raid in April as she had to return to Japan for permanent repairs after hitting a reef in February.

Following repairs, Kaga rejoined the 1st Air Fleet for the Battle of Midway in June 1942. After bombarding American forces on Midway Atoll, Kaga and three other IJN carriers were attacked by American aircraft from Midway and the carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown. Dive bombers from Enterprise severely damaged Kaga; when it became obvious she could not be saved, she was scuttled by Japanese destroyers to prevent her from falling into enemy hands. The loss of four large attack carriers, including Kaga at Midway, was a crucial setback for Japan, and contributed significantly to Japan's ultimate defeat. In 1999, debris from Kaga including a large section of the hull was located on the ocean floor at a depth in excess of 5,000 meters (16,404 ft); 350 miles (560 km) northwest of Midway Island. The main part of the carrier's wreck has not been found.


Design and construction
See also: Tosa-class battleship
Kaga was laid down as a Tosa-class battleship, and was launched on 17 November 1921 at the Kawasaki Heavy Industries shipyard in Kobe. On 5 February 1922 both Tosa-class ships were canceled and scheduled to be scrapped under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

The Treaty authorized conversion of two battleship or battlecruiser hulls into aircraft carriers of up to 33,000 long tons (34,000 t) standard displacement. The incomplete battlecruisers Amagi and Akagi were initially selected, but the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923 damaged Amagi's hull beyond economically feasible repair, and Kaga was selected as her replacement. The formal decision to convert Kaga to an aircraft carrier was issued 13 December 1923, but no work took place until 1925 as new plans were drafted and earthquake damage to the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal was repaired. She was officially commissioned on 31 March 1928, but this signified only the beginning of sea trials. She joined the Combined Fleet (Rengō Kantai) on 30 November 1929 as the IJN's third carrier to enter service, after Hōshō (1922) and Akagi (1927).

Kaga was completed with a length of 238.5 meters (782 ft 6 in) overall. She had a beam of 31.67 meters (103 ft 11 in) and a draft at full load of 7.92 meters (26 ft 0 in). She displaced 26,900 long tons (27,300 t) at standard load, and 33,693 long tons (34,234 t) at full load, nearly 6,000 long tons (6,100 t) less than her designed displacement as a battleship. Her complement totaled 1340 crewmembers.

Flight deck arrangements

1280px-Kaga_Ikari_1930_B.jpg
Kaga as completed, with all three flight decks visible

Kaga, like Akagi, was completed with three superimposed flight decks, the only carriers ever to be designed so. The British carriers converted from "large light cruisers", HMS Glorious, HMS Courageous, and HMS Furious, each had two flight decks, but there is no evidence that the Japanese copied the British model. It is more likely that it was a case of convergent evolution to improve launch and recovery cycle flexibility by allowing simultaneous launch and recovery of aircraft. Kaga's main flight deck was 171.2 meters (561 ft 8 in) long, her middle flight deck was only about 15 meters (49 ft 3 in) long and started in front of the bridge, and her lower flight deck was approximately 55 meters (180 ft 5 in) long. The utility of her middle flight deck was questionable as it was so short that only some of the lightly loaded aircraft could use it, even in an era when the aircraft were much lighter and smaller than they were during World War II. At any rate the ever-increasing growth in aircraft performance, size and weight during the 1930s meant that even the bottom flight deck was no longer able to accommodate the take-off roll required for the new generations of aircraft being fielded and it was plated over when the ship was modernized in the mid-1930s. Kaga's main flight deck was completely flat until a conning tower was added during the modernization.

As completed, the ship had two main hangar decks and a third auxiliary hangar with a total capacity of 60 aircraft. The hangars opened onto the middle and lower flight decks to allow aircraft to take off directly from the hangars while landing operations were in progress on the main flight deck above. No catapults were fitted. Her forward aircraft lift was offset to starboard and 10.67 by 15.85 meters (35.0 by 52.0 ft) in size. Her aft lift was on the centerline and 12.8 by 9.15 meters (42 ft 0 in by 30 ft 0 in). Her arresting gear was a French transverse system as used on their aircraft carrier Béarn and known as the Model Fju (Fju shiki) in the Japanese service.

As originally completed, Kaga carried an air group of 28 Mitsubishi B1M3 torpedo bombers, 16 Nakajima A1N fighters and 16 Mitsubishi 2MR reconnaissance aircraft.

Armament and armor

1280px-Japanese_Navy_Aircraft_Carrier_Kaga_1928.jpg
Kaga's fitting-out in 1928. This stern view shows the long funnel extending aft below the flight deck, and three 8-inch (200 mm) guns in casemates.

Kaga was armed with ten 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type guns: one twin-gun Model B turret on each side of the middle flight deck and six in casemates aft. They fired 110-kilogram (240 lb) projectiles at a rate of three to six rounds per minute with a muzzle velocity of 870 m/s (2,900 ft/s); at 25°, they had a maximum range between 22,600 and 24,000 m (24,700 and 26,200 yd). The Model B turrets were nominally capable of 70° elevation to provide additional anti-aircraft (AA) fire, but in practice the maximum elevation was only 55°. The slow rate of fire and the fixed 5° loading angle minimized any real anti-aircraft capability. This heavy gun armament was provided in case she was surprised by enemy cruisers and forced to give battle, but her large and vulnerable flight deck, hangars, and other features made her more of a target in any surface action than a fighting warship. Carrier doctrine was still evolving at this time and the impracticability of carriers engaging in gun duels had not yet been realized.

She was given an anti-aircraft armament of six twin 12-centimeter (4.7 in) 45-caliber 10th Year Type Model A2 gun mounts fitted on sponsons below the level of the funnels, where they could not fire across the flight deck, three mounts per side. These guns fired 20.3-kilogram (45 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 825–830 m/s (2,707–2,723 ft/s); at 45° this provided a maximum range of 16,000 meters (17,000 yd), and they had a maximum ceiling of 10,000 meters (33,000 ft) at 75° elevation. Their effective rate of fire was 6 to 8 rounds per minute. She had two Type 89 directors to control her 20 cm guns and two Type 91 manually powered anti-aircraft directors (Kōshaki) to control her 12 cm guns.

Kaga's waterline armored belt was reduced from 280 to 152 mm (11.0 to 6.0 in) during her reconstruction and the upper part of her torpedo bulge was given 127 mm (5.0 in) of armor. Her deck armor was also reduced from 102 to 38 mm (4.0 to 1.5 in).

Propulsion

1280px-Kaga_Tateyama_Trials_1928.jpg
Kaga undergoing post-launch trials off Tateyama, 15 September 1928.

1280px-Kaga_air_ops_1930.jpg
Kaga conducting air operations in 1930. On the upper deck are Mitsubishi B1M torpedo bombers preparing for takeoff. Nakajima A1N Type 3 fighters are parked on the lower deck forward.

When Kaga was being designed, the problem of how to deal with exhaust gases in carrier operations had not been resolved. The swiveling funnels of Hōshō had not proved successful and wind-tunnel testing had not provided an answer. As a result, Akagi and Kaga were given different exhaust systems to evaluate in real-world conditions. Kaga's funnel gases were collected in a pair of long horizontal ducts which discharged at the rear of each side of the flight deck, in spite of predictions by a number of prominent naval architects that they would not keep the hot gases away from the flight deck. The predictions proved to be correct, not least because Kaga was slower than the Akagi which allowed the gases to rise and interfere with landing operations. Another drawback was that the heat of the gases made the crew's quarters located on the side of the ship by the funnels almost uninhabitable.

Kaga was completed with four Kawasaki Brown-Curtis geared turbines with a total of 91,000 shaft horsepower (68,000 kW) on four shafts. As a battleship her expected speed had been 26.5 knots (49.1 km/h; 30.5 mph), but the reduction in displacement from 39,900 to 33,693 long tons (40,540 to 34,234 t) allowed this to increase to 27.5 knots (50.9 km/h; 31.6 mph), as demonstrated on her sea trials on 15 September 1928. She had twelve Kampon Type B (Ro) boilers with a working pressure of 20 kg/cm2 (2,000 kPa; 280 psi), although only eight were oil-fired. The other four used a mix of oil and coal. She carried 8,000 long tons (8,128 t) of fuel oil and 1,700 long tons (1,727 t) of coal to give her a range of 8,000 nautical miles (15,000 km; 9,200 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph).

Reconstruction
During her second reconstruction Kaga's two lower flight decks were converted into hangars and, along with the main flight deck, were extended to the bow. This increased the flight deck length to 248.55 meters (815 ft 5 in) and raised aircraft capacity to 90 (72 operational and 18 in storage). A third elevator forward, 11.5 by 12 meters (37 ft 9 in × 39 ft 4 in), serviced the extended hangars. Bomb and torpedo elevators were modified to deliver their munitions directly to the flight deck. Her arrester gear was replaced by a Japanese-designed Type 1 system. A small starboard island superstructure was also installed.

Kaga_Reconstruction_overhead.jpg
Kaga after reconstruction showing the new, full-length flight deck above the wide battleship hull.

Her power plant was completely replaced as were her propellers. New Kampon multi-stage geared turbines were fitted that increased her power from 91,000 to 127,400 shp (67,859 to 95,002 kW) during trials. Each had a high-pressure, a low-pressure, and a cruising turbine coupled to a single shaft. Her boilers were replaced by eight improved oil-burning models of the Kampon Type B (Ro) with a working pressure of 22 kg/cm2 (2,157 kPa; 313 psi) at a temperature of 300 °C (572 °F). The hull was lengthened by 10.3 meters (33 ft 10 in) at the stern to reduce drag and she was given another torpedo bulge above the side armor abreast the upper part of the existing bulge to increase her beam and lower her center of gravity as a result of lessons learned from the Tomozuru Incident in early 1934. This raised her standard displacement significantly, from 26,900 to 38,200 long tons (27,332 to 38,813 t). The extra power and the extra displacement roughly offset each other and her speed increased by less than a knot, up to 28.34 knots (52.49 km/h; 32.61 mph) on trials. Her fuel storage was increased to 7,500 long tons (7,620 t) of fuel oil which increased her endurance to 10,000 nmi (18,520 km; 11,510 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph). The lengthy funnel ducting was replaced by a single downturned starboard funnel modeled on that used by the Akagiwith a water-cooling system for the exhaust gasses and a cover that could be raised to allow the exhaust gasses to escape if the ship developed a severe list and the mouth of the funnel touched the sea. The space freed up by the removal of the funnel ducts was divided into two decks and converted into living quarters for the expanded air group. The carrier's complement increased to 1708 crewmembers.

The two twin turrets on the middle flight deck were removed and four new 20 cm/50 3rd Year Type No. 1 guns in casemates were added forward. Her 12 cm anti-aircraft guns were replaced by eight 12.7-centimeter (5.0 in)/40 Type 89 guns in twin mounts. They fired 23.45-kilogram (51.7 lb) projectiles at a rate between 8 and 14 rounds per minute at a muzzle velocity of 700–725 m/s (2,300–2,380 ft/s); at 45°, this provided a maximum range of 14,800 meters (16,200 yd), and a maximum ceiling of 9,400 meters (30,800 ft). Their sponsons were raised one deck to allow them some measure of cross-deck fire. Eleven twin 25 mm Type 96 gun mounts were added, also on sponsons. They fired .25-kilogram (0.55 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 900 m/s (3,000 ft/s); at 50°, this provided a maximum range of 7,500 meters (8,202 yd), and an effective ceiling of 5,500 meters (18,000 ft). The maximum effective rate of fire was only between 110 and 120 rounds per minute due to the frequent need to change the fifteen-round magazines. Six 6.5-millimeter (0.26 in) Type 11 machine guns were also carried.[29] Six Type 95 directors were fitted to control the new 25 mm guns, but Kaga retained her outdated Type 91 anti-aircraft directors.

Several major weaknesses in Kaga's design were not rectified. Kaga's aviation fuel tanks were incorporated directly into the structure of the carrier, meaning that shocks to the ship, such as those caused by bomb or shell hits, would be transmitted directly to the tanks, resulting in cracks or leaks. Also, the fully enclosed structure of the new hangar decks made fire suppression difficult, at least in part because fuel vapors could accumulate in the hangars. Adding to the danger was the requirement from the Japanese carrier doctrine that aircraft be serviced, fueled, and armed whenever possible on the hangar decks rather than on the flight deck. In addition, the carrier's hangar and flight decks carried little armor protection. Furthermore, there was no redundancy in the ship's fire-extinguishing systems. These weaknesses would later be crucial factors in the loss of the ship.

Read about her career at wikipedia.....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Kaga
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 17 November


1183 - Battle of Mizushima

The naval battle of Mizushima took place on 17 November 1183. One of the most important bases of the Taira was Yashima, a small island off the coast of Shikoku. In November 1183, Minamoto no Yoshinaka sent an army to cross the Inland Sea to Yashima, but they were caught by the Taira just offshore of Mizushima (水島), a small island of Bitchu Province, just off Honshū. The Taira tied their ships together, and placed planks across them to form a flat fighting surface.

The battle began with archers loosing a rain of arrows upon the Minamoto boats; when the boats were close enough, daggers and swords were drawn, and the two sides engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Finally, the Taira, who had brought fully equipped horses on their ships, swam to the shore with their steeds, and routed the remaining Minamoto warriors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mizushima


1603 – English explorer, writer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh goes on trial for treason.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Raleigh


1684 – Launch of French Gaillard 44–48 at Le Havre – sold 1689


1692 – Launch of French Bourbon 68 guns (Designed and built by François Coulomb snr) at Toulon – captured by the Dutch in the Battle of Vigo Bay in October 1702 and burnt by them.


1708 - Death of Ludolf Bakhuizen

Ludolf Bakhuizen (28 December 1630 – 17 November 1708) was a German-born Dutch painter, draughtsman, calligrapher and printmaker He was the leading Dutch painter of maritime subjects after Willem van de Velde the Elder and Younger left for England in 1672. He also painted portraits of his family and circle of friends.

Bakhuizen,_Battle_of_Vigo_Bay.jpg
Battle of Vigo Bay 1702

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludolf_Bakhuizen


1751 – Launch of French Thétis at Brest – deleted 1777.

Topaze class, (24/26-gun design by Jean-Joseph Ginoux, with 24/26 x 8-pounder guns).


1755 – Launch of French Pleiade, (26-gun design by Joseph Coulomb, with 26 x 8-pounder guns) at Toulon – sold 1786.


1780 – Launch of French The Majestueux was a 110-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, of the Terrible class.

Majestueux 110 (begun July 1780, launched 17 November 1780 and completed February 1781 at Toulon) – renamed Républicain in May 1797, condemned in 1808.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Majestueux_(1781)


1785 – Launch of French Borée 74 at Lorient – Renamed Ça Ira in April 1794, then Agricola in June 1794, BU 1803.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Borée_(1785)


1797 - HMS Anson (1781 - 38) and HMS Boadicea (1797 - 38), Cptn. R. G. Keates, captured the French privateer, Railleur, off Yeu Island, France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Anson_(1781)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Boadicea_(1797)


1799 - HMS Espion (en-flute), Cptn. Worsley, wrecked on Goodwin Sands with Dutch prisoners of war on board.

HMS Espion was the French frigate Atalante, which the British captured in 1794 and later converted to a store or troopship. She was wrecked, with no loss of life, in 1799.

large.jpg
lines NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 543, states that 'Espion' was at Plymouth Dockyard between March and My 1795 being fitted and having defects rectified, and there again in November 1795. She was in Sheerness Dockyard between 1 December 1796 and 16 January 1797 having further defects made good. In 1798 she was fitted as a floating battery and in 1799 as a troopship.

http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82299.html


1809 - HMS Chiffonne (36), Cptn. John Wainwright, burnt pirate vessels at Linga, Persian Gulf.

Then in November, HMS Chiffonne and HMS Caroline, together with a number of East Indiamen, participated in the campaign to eradicate piracy in the Persian Gulf, centered on Ras al-Khaimah. In an attack the British began with a cannonade of the town and followed with a ground attack. The destroyed about some vessels, 30 of them very large dhows, together with much in the way of naval stores. Chiffonne's casualties amounted to two men wounded.[14] She and Caroline destroyed the Persian towns of Linga and Laft on Qeshm Island. Chiffone also destroyed 20 vessels, nine of them large dhows at Linga and eleven, nine of them large dhows, at Laft. This time the resistance on shore was more intense and Chiffone lost one man killed and 17 wounded out of total British casualties (including men from the East India Company's vessels), of two killed and 27 wounded.

large (1).jpg
lines & profile NMM, Progress Book, volume 5, folio 298, states that 'Chiffonne' arrived at Woolwich Dockyard on 3 March 1803 and was docked on 8 April to be recoppered. She was undocked on 23 May 1803, and sailed on 17 June 1808 having been fitted. NMM, Progress Book, volume 6, folio 373, states that 'Chiffonne' went to Sheerness Dockyard in 1804 for defects to be sorted, and then in 1808 and 1811 to Portsmouth Dockyard for repairs.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82071.html#xF2xFMA28BKjIuqs.99


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Chiffone_(1799)


1847 - During the Mexican-American War, 17 Marines and 50 Sailors from the sloop-of-war Dale land at Guaymas, Mexico. The Americans are pinned down in a brief fire-fight and their commander is seriously wounded before the defenders dispersed.


1863 - The screw sloop USS Monongahela escorts Army troops and covers their landing on Mustang Island, Texas while her Sailors shell Confederate works until the defenders surrender.

USS Monongahela (1862) was a barkentine–rigged screw sloop-of-war that served in the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Her task was to participate in the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America. Post-war, she continued serving her country in various roles, such as that of a storeship and schoolship

USS_Monongahela_(1862).jpg
USS Monongahela

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monongahela_(1862)


1864 – Launch of French Intrépide was a 90-gun Algésiras-class steam ship of the line of the French Navy

The Intrépide was a 90-gun Algésiras-class steam ship of the line of the French Navy.
Under Captain Claude Gennet, Intrépide was used as a troopship to bring the expeditionary corps of the French intervention in Mexico back to France. She took part in the Siege of Sfax in 1881.
From 1883, she was a school ship of the École navale, and from 1887 she was hulked as barracks. Renamed Borda in 1890, she was used again by the École navale, and was eventually broken up in 1921

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Intrépide_(1864)


1917 - USS Fanning (DD 37) and USS Nicholson (DD 52) sink the first German submarine, U-58, off Milford Haven, Wales, upon entering World War I.


1941 - Congress amends the Neutrality Act to allow U.S. merchant ships to be armed.


1944 - TBMs (VC-82) from escort carrier USS Anzio (CVE 57) and USS Lawrence C. Taylor (DE 415) sink Japanese submarine I-26 in the Philippine Sea while USS Spadefish (SS 411) sinks escort carrier Shinyo in the Yellow Sea.

Shin'yō (神鷹) "Divine Hawk") was an escort carrier operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy, converted from the German ocean liner Scharnhorst. The liner had been trapped in Kure, Japan following the outbreak of World War II in Europe, which prevented any attempt for the ship to return to Germany. The Japanese Navy then purchased the ship, and after the Battle of Midway in June 1942, decided to convert her into an aircraft carrier. Conversion work lasted from 1942 to late 1943, and Shin'yō was commissioned into the Japanese Navy in December 1943. After entering service, Shin'yō was employed as a convoy escort in the western Pacific. She served in this capacity for less than a year; in November 1944, the US submarine Spadefish torpedoed Shin'yō while she was en route to Singapore. As many as four torpedoes hit the ship and detonated her aviation fuel tanks. The resulting explosion destroyed the ship and killed most of her crew.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Shin'yō
 
Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 November 1766 - Launch of french Belle Poule - Part I


Belle Poule was a French frigate of the Dédaigneuse class, which Léon-Michel Guignace built. She is most famous for her duel with the British frigate HMS Arethusa on 17 June 1778, which began the French involvement in the American War of Independence.

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Scale 1:48. A plan showing the body plan, stern board outine with decorations and name in a cartouche on the stern counter, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, longitudinal half-breadth for Belle Poule (1780), a captured French Frigate as taken off at Portsmouth Dockyard, prior to fitting as a 36-gun, Fifth Rate Frigate. Signed by George White [Master Shipwright, Portsmouth Dockyard, 1779-1793].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/82908.html#cZ9j6wPR44l5ulfQ.99

1768 – 1777
Belle Poule was built in Bordeaux between March 1765 and early 1767. She served in two campaigns in the West Indies, where due to her good sailing performance she was selected for the first French attempt at covering her hull with copper to resist marine growths.

From 1772 to 1776, she was sent on hydrographic missions, during which the young La Pérouse came to the attention of his superiors.

On 12 December 1776, she left India to return to Brest. At the time, France was not yet engaged in the American War of Independence, but there had been numerous incidents involving French and British ships. Indeed, on 27 April 1777, Belle Poule was chased by a British ship of the line, which she easily evaded to reach Brest. In December 1777, Belle Poule was selected to ferry Silas Deane back to America, along with news of the French-American Alliance.

1778 – 1801

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A painting by Auguste-Louis de Rossel de Cercy depicting the fight of Belle Poule and Arethusa

On 7 January, the British ships of the line Hector and Courageous stopped her and demanded to inspect her. In spite of the overwhelming superiority of the British forces, her captain, Charles de Bernard de Marigny, answered:

I am the Belle Poule, frigate of the King of France; I sail from sea and I sail to sea. Vessels of the King, my master, never allow inspections

The British offered apologies and let the frigate sail through. However, opposing winds prevented the ship from crossing the Atlantic, and after 36 days, Belle Poule had to return to Brest. Franklin later sailed to America aboard Sensible.

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Combat de la Belle Poule et de l'Aréthusa en 1778.

Fight of Belle Poule and Arethusa
Main article: Action of 17 June 1778
When war broke out, Belle Poule was sent on a reconnaissance mission, along with the 26-gun frigate Licorne, the corvette Hirondelle, and the smaller Coureur, to locate the squadron of Admiral Keppel. They encountered the British squadron, which chased them.

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Coiffure Belle-Poule

Arethusa caught up with the French and a furious battle ensued. Eventually, Arethusa had to break off the fight, having lost her main mast. The British captured the smaller French ships, but the two frigates escaped the numerous ships of the line pursuing them. Belle Poule lost 30 killed and 72 wounded, among which her captain, Lieutenant Jean Isaac Chadeau de la Clocheterie. Arethusa had eight men killed and 36 wounded. The battle was so famous that ladies of the high society invented the hairstyle "Belle Poule", with a ship on the top of the head.

Between September and October 1778, Belle Poule teamed up with French ship Vengeur and captured five privateers. In 1779, Belle Poule served as coast guard and convoy escort.

Capture
On the evening of 14 July 1780 Captain Sir James Wallace of the 64-gun ship of the line Nonsuch was off the Loire where her boats were burning the French frigate Legere.[3] He observed three vessels to the north west, signalling each other and immediately gave chase. At about midnight Nonsuch caught up with one of the three off Île d'Yeu and commenced a two-hour action. When the French vessel struck she turned out to be Belle Poule. She was armed with thirty-two 12-pounder guns, had a crew of 275 men and was under the command of Chevalier Kergariou-Coatlès. In the engagement Belle Poule lost 25 men killed, including Kergariou, and 50 other officers and men, including her second captain, wounded. Nonsuch had lost three men killed and ten wounded, two of whom died later. The two French vessels that escaped were the frigate Aimable, of thirty-two 8-pounder guns, and the corvette Rossinolle, of twenty 6-pounder guns.

British service

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Model by Arthur Molle

She was commissioned in February 1781 into the British Royal Navy, retaining her name. She served for the next 21 months under Captain Philip Patton with William Bligh as the ship's Master. On 17 April she, with Berwick, captured the privateer Calonne, under the command of Luke Ryan. Calonne was only two years old, a fast sailer, and well equipped for a voyage of three months and a crew of 200 men. She was armed with twenty-two 9-pounder guns, six 4-pounder guns and six 12-pounder carronades.

Belle Poule participated in the 1781 battle of Dogger Bank.: Hollandia, one of the Dutch ships-of-the-line, sank after the battle. Belle Poule took away her flag, which was kept flying, and carried it to Admiral Parker.

Fate
The Royal Navy put Belle Poule into ordinary at Chatham in November 1782. She then served briefly as a receiving ship from 1796 before the Admiralty sold her for breaking up in 1801



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Belle_Poule_(1765)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Arethusa_(1759)
 
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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 November 1766 - Launch of french Belle Poule - Part II - Monographie


Jean Boudriot and Hubert Berti made a wonderful planset and monographie of this frigate, in scale 1:48, published via ancre.
Now also in english available

https://ancre.fr/en/monograph/17-la-belle-poule-fregate-1765.html#/langue-brochure_en_anglais_seule

In French The renaissance of the French military navy at the time of the American War of Independence was preceded by a great deal of research in the field of naval architecture and artillery. The 12-pdr frigate is the direct result of this effort. 104 such ships were built between 1748 and 1798. The 12-pdr frigate is the typical ship of the American Revolutionary War, subsequently the 18-pdr will take its place during the wars of the First Empire. There were many 12-pdr frigates from which to choose, but the Belle-Poule was the obvious choice since she distinguished herself along with the lugger Le Coureur, as the first ship to be involved in combat action on 17 June 1778 during the Revolutionay War. The direct account of this battle by the parties involved will give readers an immediate feel for the period. History buffs and ship's model builders alike will be captivated by this narrative that documents an actual artillery duel between two ships of comparable strength.

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COMPOSITION OF THE MONOGRAPH
117p. booklet, 24x31cm format, including : - The history of the 12-pdr frigate - Comparative plans of several frigates - Interior accommodation of the frigate - Protection of the underwater hull Monograph of the Belle-Poule - Construction - Artillery - History - Technical commentary on the plates Set of 22 plates at 1:48 scale including :

1 Schematic view
2 Horizontal sections
3 Vertical sections
4 Building the bow and the stern
5 Plan of the ship's battery
6 Plan of the forecastle and quaterdeck
7 View of the hull
8 View of the bow and stern
9 Cross-sections
10 Longitudinal section
11 and 12 Fitting
13 Coppering
14 Masting components
15 Fitting for the masts
16 Square sails for the foremast
17 Square sails for the mainmast
18 Square sails for the mizzenmast
19 Longitudinal sails
20 The ship under full sail at 1:72 scale
21 Belaying plan
22 Schematic view at 1:72 scale

Translated by François Fougerat
Photos du modèle de M. Frölich (Photographe : Olivier Gatine)


A wonderful model based on the monographie from Boudriot and Berti
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