Naval/Maritime History 27th of August - Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
25 September 1868 – The Imperial Russian steam frigate Alexander Nevsky is shipwrecked off Jutland while carrying Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.


Alexander Nevsky (Russian: Александр Невский) was a large screw frigate of the Russian Imperial Navy. The ship was designed as part of a challenge being offered by the Russian Empire to the Royal Navy, but was lost in a shipwreck in 1868 while Grand Duke Alexei, son of Tsar Alexander II, was aboard.


The large screw frigate Alexander Neuski of the Russian Imperial Navy, circa 1863. Detail of an illustration in the October 17, 1863 Harpers Weekly. "The Russian Fleet, Commanded by Admiral Lisovski, Now in New York Harbor"

History
Alexander Nevsky, 1868, Toulon

Alexander Nevsky was a screw frigate of 5,100 tons (bm) and mounting 51 smoothbore cannon, making her a large vessel for her class. The ship's cannon were all 60-pounder smoothbores, divided into long- and medium-class guns.

The vessel was part of the expansion of the Russian Imperial Navy in cooperation with the United States, in order to challenge then-rival Great Britain's Royal Navy. The ship was designed by Ivan Dmitriev based on the frigate General Admiral, an American-made ship ordered by the Russian Imperial Navy prior to the American Civil War. It was named after Russian historical icon Alexander Nevsky (1230–1263), making it the seventh warship at the time that had carried his name.

Once commissioned, the vessel was part of the Atlantic Squadron of Rear Admiral Stepan Lesovsky. In 1863, Lesovsky sailed the Atlantic Squadron, using Alexander Nevsky as his flagship, to New York City in order to show the flag during a low point in American-Russian relations. The ship's captain at the time was Captain Mikhail Yakovlevich Federovsky.


Alexander Nevsky, 1868, Toulon

The fleet's American design was noted with enthusiasm by American spectators. For instance, it was noted in Harper's Weekly that:

The two largest in the squadron, the frigate Alexander Nevski and Peresvet, are evidently vessels of modern build, and much about them leads the unpracticed eye to think they were built in this country ... The flagship's guns are of American make, being cast in Pittsburgh.​

Alexander Nevsky and the other vessels of the Atlantic squadron stayed in American waters for seven months, despite the state of civil war then existing in the United States. They even dropped anchor at Washington, D.C., the ships having sailed up the Potomac River. At one point during this extended stay, Alexander Nevsky had engine problems during a local cruise and had to return to New York for repairs.

Shipwreck


Wreck of the Alexander Nevsky by artist Alexey Bogolyubov, 1868


Second painting by Bogolyubov, 1868

On 25 September 1868, on her way home from a visit to Piraeus, where she had participated in the celebration of Greek King George's wedding to Grand Duchess Olga of Russia, and while carrying Grand Duke Alexei, son of Tsar Alexander II, Alexander Nevsky was wrecked in the North Sea off Thyborøn, a fishing village in Jutland, Denmark.

The vessel was travelling by sail at that time and both the admiral (who had been responsible for Grand Duke Alexei's naval education) and the ship's captain miscalculated the ship's position due to incorrect drift information recorded in the pilot book. Buffeted by rain, Alexander Nevsky struck a sandbar, and her masts and some of the ship's cannons had to be pitched into the sea to prevent the vessel from immediately capsizing.

Responding to the ship's distress signal (a gun was fired), the local fishermen poured out into the now becalmed sea and rescued all of the ship's crew, aside from five crewmen who had drowned while attempting to seek help on a lifeboat.

The warship eventually sank, the wreck settling in roughly 60 feet (20 m) of water, only 300 feet (100 m) from the present coast of Thyborøn. The captain and admiral aboard were convicted of dereliction of duty at a court-martial, but the tsar intervened and pardoned them due to their long service to the fleet.

Grand Duke Alexei often claimed that he almost drowned when the ship went down, and enjoyed telling the story through the rest of his life.

Legacy
The shipwreck was the topic of a great deal of local and international reporting at the time, and is the subject of a major exhibition at the Lemvig Museum.

Three of the drowned crewmen were buried in the village churchyard, while the remains of the two others were returned to Russia. There is a small tombstone for the three buried there (officer Odintsov and crewmen Shilov and Polyakov) with the inscription, "They went on a deadly risk to save their comrades. May God have salvation on their souls."

Russian writer Pyotr Vyazemsky, who had been aboard Alexander Nevsky in 1865 in Nice, dedicated a poem to the ship. Artist Alexey Bogolyubov created two paintings of the ship's fate, one depicting the wreck during the night and the other during daylight.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Alexei_Alexandrovich_of_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_frigate_Alexander_Nevsky

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
25 September 1880 – Gussie Telfair ex USS Gertrude wrecked


USS Gertrude (1863) was the British blockade-running steamship Gertrude captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was placed in service by the Navy as a gunboat and assigned to patrol the southern coast of the United States for ships attempting to run the Union blockade of Southern ports. She was later the American merchant ship Gussie Telfair until wrecked in 1880.


The Varuna was of similar size and disposition as a the Gertrude

Blockade runner C.S.S. Gertrude
The iron-hulled steamer Gertrude was built in Whiteinch, Glasgow, Scotland as Yard No.100 at the Clydeholm yard of Barclay, Curle & Company as an American Civil War blockade runner and launched on 25 November 1862. Along with her sistership Emma, she was built for Thomas Stirling Begbie, a London shipowner and merchant. Gertrude was measured as 278grt and 191nrt, with dimensions 164.4 feet length overall, 21.2 feet beam and 12.2 feet depth. She was powered by 2-cylinder oscillating engine of 100nhp, made by John Scott's Greenock Foundry Company, Greenock.

Gertrude made her first run of the blockade from Nassau, Bahamas to Charleston, South Carolina, arriving 16 March 1863, and returned safely with 820 bales of cotton. On her next trip, Gertrude had barely left Nassau when she was chased and captured on 16 April 1863 by the gunboat USS Vanderbilt off Eleuthera Island, Bahamas.


The Gussie Telfair as it appeared shortly before it ran aground in Coos Bay. The sleek lines and stealthy portholes of the old blockade runner
are still visible, despite the conspicuous white superstructures that had been added later for passenger comfort. (Image: Coos County Historical Museum)

United States Navy service
Purchased from the New York City Prize Court by the United States Navy on 4 June 1863, Gertrude was fitted out at New York Navy Yard and commissioned there on 22 July 1863, Acting Master Walter K. Cressy in command. Assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron under Rear Admiral David Farragut, Gertrude arrived off Mobile, Alabama, in early August and on 16 August captured the Confederate blockade runner Warrior following a 9-hour chase.

After taking her prize to New Orleans, Louisiana, Gertrude was assigned to blockade duty off that port. She served as a blockading ship, alternating between New Orleans and Mobile, until May 1864, and was credited with the capture of schooner Ellen on 16 January 1864. During this period she also spent short periods at Ship Island, Mississippi, and New Orleans for repairs.

Texas coast operations
Beginning in May 1864, Gertrude was assigned to blockade the Texas coast, and spent most of the next year off Galveston, Texas. She visited blockading stations off Sabine Pass and Velasco, Texas, and took blockade runner Eco off Galveston 19 February 1865.

Gertrude also captured over 50 bales of cotton 19 April 1865 which were thrown overboard by famous Confederate blockade runner Denbigh during her escape from the blockading fleet.

Post-war decommissioning, sale, and subsequent career
Gertrude decommissioned 11 August 1865 at the Philadelphia Navy Yard and was sold 30 November at New York City to George Wright. She was redocumented Gussie Telfair in 1866 and sailed as a merchantman until 1878.
Went hard aground at Rocky Point, Coos Bay (Portland OR for Marshfield/Coos Bay OR, with coal and 20 passengers. All on board saved and coal cargo later removed, but GUSSIE TELFAIR became a total wreck. The reason for the original grounding is not known

Interesting article you can find here:
Legendary Civil War ship came to ignominious end in Coos Bay
During its glory days, the Gertrude was the fastest blockade runner in the Confederate fleet. But just 17 years later, it was just another dumpy old steamer on a lowly coastwise run, wrecked in what was probably an insurance-fraud scheme.
By Finn J.D. John — October 5, 2013
http://offbeatoregon.com/1310a-gussie-telfair-shipwrecked-warrior.html


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gertrude_(1863)

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
25 September 1897 - Launch of SMS Fürst Bismarck (Prince Bismarck) a germany first armored cruiser, built for the Kaiserliche Marine before the turn of the 20th century.


The ship was named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck. The design for Fürst Bismarck was an improvement over the previous Victoria Louise-class protected cruiser—Fürst Bismarck was significantly larger and better armed than her predecessors.



The ship was primarily intended for colonial duties, and she served in this capacity as part of the East Asia Squadron until she was relieved in 1909, at which point she returned to Germany. The ship was rebuilt between 1910 and 1914, and after the start of World War I, she was briefly used as a coastal defense ship. She proved inadequate to this task, and so she was withdrawn from active duty and served as a training ship for engineers until the end of the war. Fürst Bismarck was decommissioned in 1919 and sold for scrap.

Design


S.M. Grosser Kreuzer Fürst Bismarck.

Fürst Bismarck was designed before the naval arms race between Germany and the United Kingdom. Admiral Hollmann was the State Secretary of the Naval Office at the time. Given the dominance of the British Royal Navy and the impossibility, as he saw it, of competing with it, Hollmann envisaged a small fleet consisting of torpedo boats and coastal defense ships to be based in German waters. This would be supplemented by a number of cruisers for overseas duties, including trade protection.

The first armored cruiser to be designed by the German navy, Fürst Bismarck was an enlarged version of the Victoria Louise-class cruisers, at nearly twice the displacement and with a significantly more powerful armament. The ship was intended for overseas use, particularly in support of German colonies in Asia and the Pacific. Despite heavy political opposition, the new ship was approved by the Reichstag, and was laid down as Ersatz Leipzig in April 1896 at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. Fürst Bismarck, named after the famous German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, was completed on 1 April 1900, at a cost of 18,945,000 Marks.

Dimensions
Fürst Bismarck was 125.70 m (412.4 ft) at the waterline, with an overall length of 127 m (417 ft) and a beam of 20.40 m (66.9 ft). She had a draft of 7.80 m (25.6 ft) forward and 8.46 m (27.8 ft) aft. She displaced 10,690 tonnes (10,520 long tons) at the designed load, and 11,461 tonnes (11,280 long tons) at full load. Fürst Bismarck was described as being a very good sea-boat, and was highly responsive to commands from the helm. However, the ship suffered from serious roll problems and heavy vibration at higher speeds. Her metacentric height was .72 m.

The ship was of transverse and longitudinal steel frame construction; the hull was a single layer of wooden planks covered by a Muntz metal sheath that extended up to .95 m (3.1 ft) above the waterline. The lower portions of the ship, including the stem and the stern, were covered with bronze plating. The ship had 13 watertight compartments and a double bottom that ran for 59% of the length of the hull.

Machinery
Fürst Bismarck was propelled by three vertical four-cylinder, triple-expansion reciprocating engines. The engines were powered by four Thornycroft boilers—which had been built by AG Germania—and 8 cylindrical boilers. The Thornycroft boilers had two fire boxes apiece, for a total of eight, while the cylindrical boilers each had four fire boxes, for a total of 32. Each of the three engines drove a three-bladed screw. The center propeller was 4.40 m (14.4 ft) in diameter, while the two outer screws were slightly larger, at 4.80 m (15.7 ft) in diameter. The engines produced 13,500 ihp (10,100 kW) and a top speed of 18.7 knots (34.6 km/h). On trials, the engines were pushed to 13,622 ihp (10,158 kW), but still only provided a top speed of 18.7 knots (34.6 km/h). Electrical power was supplied by five generators that provided 325 kilowatts at 110 volts.

Armor

Fritz Stoltenberg painting of Fürst Bismarck

Fürst Bismarck was protected with Krupp armor, which was in some cases thicker than that of subsequent designs. The armor belt was 20 cm (7.9 in) thick in the central portion of the ship, and tapered down to 10 cm (3.9 in) towards either end of the ship. Set behind the armored belt were 10 cm (3.9 in) thick shields for critical areas of the ship. The main armored deck was 3 cm (1.2 in) thick, with 5 cm (2.0 in) thick slopes. The forward conning tower had 20 cm-thick sides and a 4 cm (1.6 in) thick roof, while the aft conning tower had 10 cm sides and a 3 cm roof. The main battery turret sides were 20 cm thick and the roofs were 4 cm thick. The 15 cm turrets had 10 cm sides and 7 cm (2.8 in) gun shields. The casemated guns had 10 cm shields.

By contrast, the following armored cruiser design, Prinz Heinrich, had only had a 10 cm-thick armor belt and 15 cm (5.9 in) of armor on the turret sides.[4] Even Blücher, Germany's last armored cruiser, only had a 18.0 cm (7.1 in) armored belt and 18 cm-thick turret faces, though her overall scale of protection was much more comprehensive than Fürst Bismarck's.

Armament


Fürst Bismarck, in Manila harbor

Fürst Bismarck's main armament consisted of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 quick-firing gunshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Fürst_Bismarck#cite_note-gun_nomenclature-7 in two Drh. L. C/98 twin turrets, fore and aft of the main superstructure. These guns could depress to −4 degrees and elevate to 30 degrees, for a maximum range of 16,900 m (18,482 yd). The guns fired 140 kg (309 lb) armor-piercing shells at a muzzle velocity of 690 meters per second (2,300 ft/s). The propellantcharge weighed 41.35 kg (91 lb) and was stored in a brass case. The ship stored 312 rounds, for a total of 78 shells per gun.

The secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (6 in) SK L/40 quick-firing guns in MPL type casemates, and ten 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/30 guns in a combination of casemates and shielded mounts. The 15 cm guns could elevate to 20 degrees, and had a range of 13,700 m (14,983 yd). The 15 cm guns could sustain a rate of fire of 4 to 5 rounds per minute, and stored 120 shells per gun. The 8.8 cm gun fired a 10 kg (22 lb) projectile at a muzzle velocity of 590 m/s (1,900 ft/s). Each gun was supplied with 250 shells.

Six 17.7 in (450 mm) torpedo tubes were also fitted, with a total of 16 torpedoes. One tube was fitted to a swivel mount on the stern of the ship, four were submerged on the broadside, and the sixth was placed in the bow, also submerged.

Service history


Fürst Bismarck in harbor

Upon commissioning, Fürst Bismarck was assigned to the German East Asia Squadron. She arrived at Tsingtao in August 1900, under the command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Curt von Prittwitz und Gaffron, and participated in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion. The ship won the Kaiser's gold challenge cup for heavy-gun marksmanship in 1901 and 1903.[9] When the new armored cruiser SMS Scharnhorst arrived at Tsingtao in 1909 to replace Fürst Bismarck as flagship of the East Asia Squadron, she was ordered back to Germany. Upon arriving in Kiel in June 1909, she was decommissioned and entered a lengthy modernization that lasted until 1914.

At the outbreak of World War I, the ship was reactivated for coast defense duties, but was quickly withdrawn from active service. Fürst Bismarck spent the remainder of the war as a stationary accommodation and engineering training ship in Kiel. In 1919, she was used for a short time as an office ship. Fürst Bismarck was struck from the navy register on 17 June 1919, sold for scrap, and broken up the following year at Audorf-Rendsburg


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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
25 September 1909 – Launch of SMS Helgoland, a german Helgoland-class battleship


SMS Helgoland, the lead ship of her class, was a dreadnought battleship of the German Imperial Navy. Helgoland's design represented an incremental improvement over the preceding Nassau class, including an increase in the bore diameter of the main guns, from 28 cm (11 in) to 30.5 cm (12 in). Her keel was laid down on 11 November 1908 at the Howaldtswerke shipyards in Kiel. Helgoland was launched on 25 September 1909 and was commissioned on 23 August 1911.


SMS Helgoland c. 1911–1917

Like most battleships of the High Seas Fleet, Helgoland saw limited action against Britain's Royal Navy during World War I. The ship participated in several fruitless sweeps into the North Sea as the covering force for the battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. She saw some limited duty in the Baltic Sea against the Russian Navy, including serving as part of a support force during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915. Helgoland was present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, though she was located in the center of the German line of battle and not as heavily engaged as the König- and Kaiser-class ships in the lead. Helgoland was ceded to Great Britain at the end of the war and broken up for scrap in the early 1920s. Her coat of arms is preserved in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden.


The Helgoland class was the second class of German dreadnought battleships. Constructed from 1908 to 1912, the class comprised four ships: Helgoland, the lead ship; Oldenburg; Ostfriesland; and Thüringen. The design was a significant improvement over the previous Nassau-class ships; they had a larger main battery—30.5 cm (12.0 in) main guns instead of the 28 cm (11 in) weapons mounted on the earlier vessels—and an improved propulsion system. The Helgolands were easily distinguished from the preceding Nassaus by the three funnels that were closely arranged, compared to the two larger funnels of the previous class. The ships retained the hexagonal main battery layout of the Nassau class.

The ships served as a unit in the I Division, I Battle Squadron alongside the Nassau-class ships in the II Division of the I Battle Squadron. They saw combat during World War I, including the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in the Baltic. All four survived the war, but were not taken as part of the German fleet that was interned at Scapa Flow. When the German ships at Scapa Flow were scuttled, the four Helgolands were ceded as war reparations to the victorious Allied powers in the sunken ships' stead. Ostfriesland was taken by the US Navy and expended as a target during Billy Mitchell's air power demonstration in July 1921. Helgoland and Oldenburg were allotted to Britain and Japan respectively, and broken up in 1921. Thüringen was delivered to France in 1920, and was used as a target ship for the French navy. The ship was eventually broken up between 1923 and 1933.

Design
The Triple Entente between the United Kingdom, France, and Russia had been signed in 1907. Germany had become significantly isolated—on the Continent, Germany was hemmed in by France in the west and Russia in the east, and the UK, with her powerful navy, was capable of blocking German access to the world shipping lanes. Admiral von Tirpitz reacted to this development with the request for newer and stronger capital ships. His thoughts on the matter were, "The aim which I had to keep in view ... for technical and organizing reasons as well as reasons of political finance was to build as steadily as possible." His appeal came in the form of the proposed Second Amendment to the Naval Law, which was passed on 27 March 1908.

For the second class of German dreadnoughts, there was considerable debate as to what changes would be made from the first design. In May 1906, the Reichsmarineamt (RMA, Imperial Navy Office) received word that the British were building battleships equipped with 13.5-inch (34 cm) guns. As a result, the General Navy Department advocated increasing the caliber of the main battery from 28 cm (11 in) to 30.5 cm (12.0 in). Admiral von Tirpitz was reluctant to agree to this change, as he wished to avoid escalating the arms race with Britain.

Admiral von Tirpitz's hesitation at increasing the armament of the new ships was lost when it became known in early 1907 that the United States Navy was building battleships with 30.5 cm guns. In March 1907, von Tirpitz ordered the Construction Department to prepare a design with 30.5 cm guns and 320 mm (13 in) thick belt armor. Some dispute remained over the arrangement of the main battery. The two Minas Geraes-class battleships being built for Brazil mounted the same number of guns, but in a more efficient arrangement. Superfiring turret pairs were placed on either end of the ship, with two wing turrets amidships. Admiral von Tirpitz favored adopting this arrangement for the Helgoland class, but the Construction Department felt two superfiring turrets could be easily disabled by a single hit. As a result, the hexagonal arrangement of the preceding Nassaus was retained.

The Naval Law stipulated that the lifespan of large warships was to be reduced from 25 years to 20 years; this was done in an effort to force the Reichstag to allocate funds for additional ships. The reduction necessitated the replacement of the coastal defense ships of the Siegfried and Oldenburg classes as well as the Brandenburg-class battleships. The battleships that von Tirpitz had failed to secure in the First Amendment to the Naval Law of 1906 were now approved by the Reichstag. The Naval Law also increased the naval budget by an additional 1 billion marks. After the four Sachsen-class ironclads had been replaced by the four Nassaus, three of the Siegfried-class ships—Siegfried, Beowulf, Frithjof—and the unique coastal defense ship Oldenburg were the next slated to be replaced. The Helgoland-class ships—SMS Helgoland, SMS Ostfriesland, SMS Thüringen, and SMS Oldenburg—were ordered under the provisional names Ersatz Siegfried, Ersatz Oldenburg, Ersatz Beowulf, and Ersatz Frithjof, respectively.



General characteristics
The Helgoland-class ships were longer than their predecessors, at 167.2 m (548 ft 7 in) overall. The ships had a beam of 28.5 m (93 ft 6 in) and at full load a draft of 8.94 m (29 ft 4 in). The ships were significantly heavier than the Nassau class; the Helgoland-class ships displaced 22,808 tonnes (22,448 long tons) at a standard load, and 24,700 tonnes (24,310 long tons) at full load, nearly 4,000 tonnes (3,900 long tons) more than the earlier ships. The ships had 17 watertight compartments and a double bottom for 86% of the length of the hull.

The class had greatly improved handling characteristics over the preceding Nassau class. The Helgolands were much better sea boats and did not suffer from the severe rolling that the Nassaus did. The ships were responsive to the helm, and had a tight turning radius, and lost only minimal speed during swells. The ships lost up to 54% of their speed at hard rudder, and would heel up to 7°. For comparison, the earlier Nassaus lost up to 70% speed and held a 12° heel with the rudder hard over.

Propulsion
The Helgoland-class ships retained older triple-expansion steam engines rather than the new steam turbines in use in the British Royal Navy. This decision was based solely on cost: at the time, Parsons held a monopoly on steam turbines and required a 1 million gold mark royalty fee for every turbine engine. The triple-expansion engines were three-shaft, four-cylinder engines arranged in three engine rooms. Each shaft drove a four-bladed screw propeller that was 5.1 m (16 ft 9 in) in diameter. The engines were powered by 15 marine-type boilers with two fireboxes apiece for a total of 30. The engines were rated at 27,617 ihp (20,594 kW) with a top speed of 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h; 23.6 mph). On trials, the power-plant produced up to 35,014 ihp (26,110 kW), and a top speed of 21.3 knots (39.4 km/h; 24.5 mph). The ships carried 3,200 tonnes (3,150 long tons) of coal, and were later modified to carry an additional 197 tonnes (194 long tons) of oil that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full fuel capacity, the ships could steam for 5,500 nautical miles (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). The ships' electrical power was provided by eight turbo-generators that produced 2,000 kW (225 V).

Armament


Helgoland's bridge and forward main battery turrets


Like the preceding Nassau class (pictured), the Helogolands used an unusual hexagonal arrangement for their main battery

Like the Nassau class which preceded it, the Helgoland-class ships carried their main armament in an unusual hexagonal configuration. Twelve 30.5 cm (12.0 in) SK L/50[d] guns were emplaced in long-trunk Drh LC/1908 mountings, an improved version of the previous LC/1907 and LC/1906 mounts used in the Nassau class. The guns were arranged in pairs in six twin gun turrets, with one turret each fore and aft, and two on each flank of the ship. The guns could initially be depressed to −8° and elevated to 13.5°, although the turrets were later modified to allow −5.5° depression and 16° of elevation. The guns fired 405-kilogram (893 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 855 m/s (2,810 ft/s); at 13.5°, this provided a maximum range of 18,700 m (20,500 yd), and with the upgraded 16° elevation, the range was extended to 20,500 m (22,400 yd). The guns had a total of 1,020 rounds for 85 shells per gun.

The ships' secondary armament consisted of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns, which were mounted in casemates. The guns fired 45.3-kilogram (100 lb) shells at a muzzle velocity of 840 m/s (2,800 ft/s). The guns could be elevated to 19°, which provided a maximum range of 14,950 metres (16,350 yd). The ships also carried fourteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns, also in casemates. These guns fired a 10-kilogram (22 lb) projectile at 650 m/s (2,100 ft/s), and could be trained up to 25° for a maximum range of 9,600 m (10,500 yd). After 1914, two 8.8 cm guns were removed and replaced by two 8.8 cm Flak guns, and between 1916 and 1917, the remaining twelve 8.8 cm casemated guns were removed. These anti-aircraft guns fired a slightly lighter 9.6-kilogram (21 lb) shell at 770 m/s (2,500 ft/s). They could be elevated to 45° and could hit targets 11,800 m (12,900 yd) away. The Helgoland-class ships were further armed with six 50 cm (20 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One tube was mounted in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside, on either ends of the torpedo bulkhead.

Armor
The Helgoland-class ships were equipped with Krupp cemented armor, in almost the same layout as in the preceding Nassau-class ships. The only major differences were slight increases in the armor protection for the main and secondary batteries, and a much thicker roof for the forward conning tower. The ships had an armored belt that was 30 cm (12 in) thick at its strongest points, where it protected the ship's vitals, and as thin as 8 cm (3.1 in) in less critical areas, such as the bow and stern. Behind the main belt was a torpedo bulkhead 3 cm (1.2 in) thick. The ships' decks were armored, between 5.5 and 8 cm (2.2 and 3.1 in) thick. The forward conning tower on each vessel had a roof that was 20 cm (7.9 in) thick, and sides 40 cm (16 in) thick. The aft conning tower was not as heavily armored, with only a 5 cm (2.0 in) thick roof and 20 cm (7.9 in) sides. The main battery turrets had roofs that were 10 cm (3.9 in) thick, and 30 cm sides. The casemated secondary battery had 17 cm (6.7 in) worth of armor protection, and 8 cm thick gun shields. The Helgolands were also fitted with anti-torpedo nets, but these were removed after 1916.

Construction


Helgoland in a floating dry dock

Four ships of the class were ordered, under the provisional names Ersatz Siegfried (Helgoland), Ersatz Oldenburg (Ostfriesland), Ersatz Beowulf (Thüringen), and Ersatz Frithjof (Oldenburg), as replacements for three of the coastal defense ships of the Siegfried-class, and the unique coastal defense ship SMS Oldenburg. SMS Helgoland was built at Howaldtswerke, Kiel. She was laid down on 11 November 1908, launched 25 September 1909, and commissioned nearly two years later on 23 August 1911. SMS Ostfriesland was built at Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven. She was laid down 19 October 1908, launched five days after her sister Helgoland, on 30 September 1909, and commissioned 1 August 1911. SMS Thüringen was built by AG Weser in Bremen. She was laid down on 2 November 1908, launched on 27 November 1909, and commissioned on 1 July 1911. SMS Oldenburg, the final vessel, was built by Schichau in Danzig; she was laid down 1 March 1909, launched 30 June 1910, and commissioned on 1 May 1912.

Ships




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Helgoland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helgoland-class_battleship

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
25 September 1911 – An explosion of badly degraded propellant charges on board the French battleship Liberté detonates the forward ammunition magazines and destroys the ship.


Liberté was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy, and the lead ship of her class. She was laid down in November 1902, launched in April 1905, and completed in March 1908, over a year after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought made ships like Liberté obsolete. After her commissioning, Liberté was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. She served for only three and a half years; while moored in Toulon in September 1911, an explosion of badly degraded propellant charges detonated the forward ammunition magazines. Some 250 officers and men were killed, and the ship was totally destroyed. The wreck remained in the harbor until 1925, when it was raised and broken up for scrap.



Design

Main article: Liberté-class battleship


Line-drawing of the Liberté class

Liberté was laid down at the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in November 1902, launched on 19 April 1905, and completed in March 1908.[1] This was over a year after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought, which rendered the pre-dreadnoughts like Liberté outdated before they were completed.[2] The ship was 133.81 meters (439 ft 0 in) long between perpendiculars and had a beam of 24.26 m (79 ft 7 in) and a full-load draft of 8.41 m (27 ft 7 in). She displaced up to 14,860 metric tons (14,630 long tons; 16,380 short tons) at full load. She had a crew of between 739 and 769 officers and enlisted men. The battleship was powered by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines with twenty-two Belleville boilers. They were rated at 18,500 indicated horsepower (13,800 kW) and provided a top speed of 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Coal storage amounted to 1,800 t (1,800 long tons; 2,000 short tons).



Liberté's main battery consisted of four Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893/96 guns mounted in two twin gun turrets, one forward and one aft. The secondary battery consisted of ten 194 mm (7.6 in) guns; six were mounted in single turrets, and four in casemates in the hull. She also carried thirteen 65 mm (2.6 in) guns and ten 3-pounders. The ship was also armed with two 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes submerged in the hull. The ship's main belt was 280 mm (11.0 in) thick and the main battery was protected by up to 350 mm (13.8 in) of armor. The conning tower had 305 mm (12.0 in) thick sides.

Service history
After commissioning, Liberté was assigned to the Active Squadron of the French Mediterranean Fleet. In September 1909, Liberté, Justice, and Vérité visited the United States for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. The three battleships, commanded by Admiral Jules le Pord, were the first foreign contingent to arrive.


An illustration showing the extent of the damage to Liberté

On 25 September 1911, as Liberté was moored in Toulon harbor, an accidental explosion in one of her forward ammunition magazines for the secondary guns destroyed the ship. The explosion hurled a 37-metric-ton (36-long-ton; 41-short-ton) chunk of armor plate from the ship into the battleship République moored some 210 m (690 ft) away, which caused significant damage.



The French Navy had earlier suffered a series of fatal accidents in Toulon, beginning with an explosion aboard a torpedo boat in February 1907, in which nine men were killed. The following month, the battleship Iéna blew up, killing 107 men. An explosion aboard a gunnery training ship killed six in August 1908, and an explosion on a cruiser killed 13. Six more men were killed aboard the cruiser Gloire a year later, on 10 September 1911. The explosion aboard Liberté killed some 250 officers and men. The culprit was unstable Poudre B, a nitrocellulose-based propellant that was also responsible for the destruction of Iéna, and possibly the other explosions as well.

A state funeral was held for the victims of the explosion on 3 October 1911, attended by President Armand Fallières. The tragedy also raised an emotional wave of solidarity throughout France, with even small villages sending financial support to help the families of the victims. Paul Painlevé, president of the navy committee, appointed a commission of inquiry after the explosion of the battleships Iéna was followed by that of the Liberté. Captain Antoine Schwerer was a member of the commission of inquiry and wrote a "Report on Naval Powders" (1912). The captain Louis Jaurès, was exonerated of responsibility for the disaster by the board of enquiry. The wreck of the ship remained in Toulon until 1925, when she was raised and broken up for scrap.


The Liberté class was a group of four pre-dreadnought battleships of the French Navy. The class comprised Liberté, the lead ship, Justice, Vérité, and Démocratie. The ships were in most respects repeats of the previous République class, and the major difference was the adoption of 194-millimeter (7.6 in) guns for the secondary battery, rather than the 164 mm (6.5 in) guns of the République class. Due to their similarity, the two classes are sometimes treated as one basic design. The four Liberté-class ships were built between 1903 and 1908; they were completed over a year after the revolutionary British HMS Dreadnought, which rendered the French ships obsolete before they entered service.


Justice at the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in September 1909

In September 1909, three of the ships, Liberté, Justice, and Vérité visited the United States for the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. Two years later, Liberté's forward magazines exploded in Toulon harbor, destroying the ship and killing approximately 250 of her crew. The three surviving ships saw action early in World War I at the Battle of Antivari, and spent the remainder blockading the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic and were later stationed at Mudros in the Aegean. They were stricken from the naval register in 1921–1922 and broken up for scrap. Liberté was left on the bottom of Toulon harbor until 1925, when she was raised and broken up for scrap.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_battleship_Liberté
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté-class_battleship

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 25 September


1756 – Launch of Spanish Diligente 68/74 at Ferrol
- Captured by Britain at the Battle of Cape Santa Maria, 1780, renamed HMS Diligence, BU 1784


1764 – Birth of Fletcher Christian, English sailor (d. 1793)

Fletcher Christian (25 September 1764 – 20 September 1793) was master's mate on board HMS Bounty during Lieutenant William Bligh's voyage to Tahiti during 1787–1789 for breadfruit plants. In the mutiny on the Bounty, Christian seized command of the ship from Bligh on 28 April 1789.

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


1863 - Commodore Henry H. Bell reports to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles from New Orleans about the yellow fever outbreak onboard steamers coming into port.

Henry Haywood Bell (13 April 1808 – 11 January 1868) was an admiral in the United States Navy. In the American Civil War, he took part in the liberation of New Orleans and the lower Mississippi. Later he was sent to the Far East to command the East India Squadron. In summer 1867, he led a punitive expedition to avenge the Rover incident, where American sailors had been killed by Taiwanese aborigines. In January of the next year, while trying to force the Japanese to accept trade concessions, he drowned when his boat overturned in bad weather.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_H._Bell


1900 – Launch of HMS Manica a British cargo steamship that became the first kite balloon ship of the Royal Naval Air Service.

HMS Manica was a British cargo steamship that became the first kite balloon ship of the Royal Naval Air Service. She saw active service in the Dardanelles Campaign of 1915 directing the fire of the supporting ships at Anzac Cove.
Ships of the similar type included HMS Canning and HMS Hector.


Manica prepares to launch a kite balloon off Gallipoli, 1915

Building
Sir James Laing & Sons Ltd built the ship in 1896 at their Deptford Yard, London as the tramp steamer Manica for the Ellerman & Bucknall Steamship Co.

Conversion to operate the kite ballon involved fitting "a long sloping deck from forecastle to waist, fixing a dynamo to drive a hydrogen compressor", and the installation of a winch. A "wireless telegraphy house" and quarters for the naval officers and men were added.

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


1925 - USS S-51 sinks after being rammed by SS City of Rome off Block Island, R.I., killing 33 of her crew.

USS S-51 (SS-162) was a fourth-group (S-48) S-class submarine of the United States Navy.
Her keel was laid down on 22 December 1919 by the Lake Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. She was launched on 20 August 1921 sponsored by Mrs. R.J. Mills, and commissioned on 24 June 1922 with Lieutenant W. S. Haas in command.



Operations
The new submarine was based at New London, Connecticut on 1 July 1922 as a unit of Submarine Division 4 (SubDiv 4) and followed a normal peacetime training cycle, operating out of her home port with visits to Newport, Rhode Island, and Providence, Rhode Island. She departed from New York City on 4 January 1924 for the Panama Canal Zone to participate in winter fleet maneuvers off Panama and in the Caribbean Sea. During this cruise, she visited Trinidad, Guantanamo Bay, Culebra, and St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. After returning to New York City on 30 April, she resumed type training off Block Island and in New England coastal waters.

Sinking
On the night of 25 September 1925, S-51 was operating on the surface near Block Island, with her running lights on. The merchant steamer City of Rome spotted a single white masthead light but were unable to determine its course, speed, or intentions. The ship altered her course away from the unknown light to give whatever it might be greater leeway. Meanwhile, S-51 spotted the ship's masthead and green sidelights, and held her course as she was required to do by the Rules of the Road then in effect. Shortly after altering course, City of Rome spotted the submarine's red sidelight and realized that they were on collision courses. She turned and backed her engines, but it was too late. Twenty-two minutes after first spotting the submarine's masthead light, the steamer rammed her at the position 41°14′30″N 71°16′16″W.

Only three, (Dewey G. Kile, Michael E. Lira, and Alfred Geier) of the 36 men in the submarine were able to abandon ship before she sank.

The courts found City of Rome at fault for not reducing her speed when in doubt as to the movement of S-51, and for not signaling her change of course. However, both the district court and the Circuit Court of Appeals found S-51 at fault for having improper lights.

The United States Navy argued that it was not practicable to have submarines of this class comply with the letter of the law, and that, as a special type of warship, S-51 was under no legal compulsion to do so. The court responded by saying if these statements were correct, then submarines "should confine their operation to waters not being traversed by other ships."

Salvage

Towing USS S-51 into New York Harbor, with USS Falcon assisting, circa July 1926


Bell of the S-51, July 2013

S-51 was raised on 5 July 1926 by a team led by then-Lieutenant Commander (later Rear Admiral) Edward Ellsberg. The entire salvage operation was commanded by Captain (later Fleet Admiral) Ernest J. King. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 27 January 1930 and sold for scrap on 23 June to the Borough Metal Company of Brooklyn, New York.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_S-51_(SS-162)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1580 – Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth


Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer and explorer of the Elizabethan era. Drake carried out the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, and was the first to complete the voyage as captain while leading the expedition throughout the entire circumnavigation. With his incursion into the Pacific Ocean, he claimed what is now California for the English and inaugurated an era of conflict with the Spanish on the western coast of the Americas, an area that had previously been largely unexplored by western shipping.



Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received on the Golden Hind in Deptford. As a Vice Admiral, he was second-in-command of the English fleet in the battle against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He died of dysentery in January 1596, after unsuccessfully attacking San Juan, Puerto Rico. Drake's exploits made him a hero to the English, but his privateering led the Spanish to brand him a pirate, known to them as El Draque. King Philip II allegedly offered a reward for his capture or death of 20,000 ducats, about £6 million (US$8 million) in modern currency.

Circumnavigation of the earth (1577–1580)


A map of Drake's route around the world. The northern limit of Drake's exploration of the Pacific coast of North America is still in dispute. Drake's Bay is south of Cape Mendocino.

With the success of the Panama isthmus raid, in 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Drake used the plans that Sir Richard Grenville had received the patent for in 1574 from Elizabeth, which was rescinded a year later after protests from Philip of Spain. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair.

After this major setback, Drake set sail again on 13 December aboard Pelican with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa Maria), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.

Drake's fleet suffered great attrition; he scuttled both Christopher and the flyboat Swan due to loss of men on the Atlantic crossing. He made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier, where he put to death some mutineers. Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the grim Spanish gibbets. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own "mutineer" Thomas Doughty. The crew discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they burned the ship. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan.

Execution of Thomas Doughty
Main article: Thomas Doughty (explorer)

Bronze statue in Tavistock, in the parish of which he was born, by Joseph Boehm, 1883.

On his voyage to interfere with Spanish treasure fleets, Drake had several quarrels with his co-commander Thomas Doughty and on 3 June 1578, accused him of witchcraft and charged him with mutiny and treason in a shipboard trial.[34]Drake claimed to have a (never presented) commission from the Queen to carry out such acts and denied Doughty a trial in England. The main pieces of evidence against Doughty were the testimony of the ship's carpenter, Edward Bright, who after the trial was promoted to master of the ship Marigold, and Doughty's admission of telling Lord Burghley, a vocal opponent of agitating the Spanish, of the intent of the voyage. Drake consented to his request of Communion and dined with him, of which Francis Fletcher had this strange account:

And after this holy repast, they dined also at the same table together, as cheerfully, in sobriety, as ever in their lives they had done aforetime, each cheering up the other, and taking their leave, by drinking each to other, as if some journey only had been in hand.​

Drake had Thomas Doughty beheaded on 2 July 1578. When the ship's chaplain Francis Fletcher in a sermon suggested that the woes of the voyage in January 1580 were connected to the unjust demise of Doughty, Drake chained the clergyman to a hatch cover and pronounced him excommunicated.

Entering the Pacific (1578)


A replica of the Golden Hind

The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later (September 1578) Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships, the Marigold (captained by John Thomas) in the strait and caused another, the Elizabeth captained by John Wynter, to return to England, leaving only the Pelican. After this passage, the Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island that Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast. In the Magellan Strait Francis and his men engaged in skirmish with local indigenous people, becoming the first Europeans to kill indigenous peoples in southern Patagonia.[36] During the stay in the strait, crew members discovered that an infusion made of the bark of Drimys winteri could be used as remedy against scurvy. Captain Wynter ordered the collection of great amounts of bark – hence the scientific name.

Despite popular lore, it seems unlikely that Drake reached Cape Horn or the eponymous Drake Passage,[35] because his descriptions do not fit the first and his shipmates denied having seen an open sea. The first report of his discovery of an open channel south of Tierra del Fuego was written after the 1618 publication of the voyage of Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire around Cape Horn in 1616.

Drake pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). The Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports and pillaging towns. Some Spanish ships were captured, and Drake used their more accurate charts. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island, where he was seriously injured by hostile Mapuche. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile, where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.

Capture of Spanish treasure ships
Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship laden with 25,000 pesos of Peruvian gold, amounting in value to 37,000 ducats of Spanish money (about £7m by modern standards). Drake also discovered news of another ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which was sailing west towards Manila. It would come to be called the Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship, which proved his most profitable capture.

Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 80 lb (36 kg) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests full of royals of plate and 26 tons of silver. Drake was naturally pleased at his good luck in capturing the galleon, and he showed it by dining with the captured ship's officers and gentleman passengers. He offloaded his captives a short time later, and gave each one gifts appropriate to their rank, as well as a letter of safe conduct.

Coast of California: Nova Albion (1579)
Main article: New Albion


Drake's landing in California, engraving published 1590 by Theodor de Bry

After looting the Cacafuego, Drake turned north, hoping to meet another Spanish treasure ship coming south on its return from Manila to Acapulco. Although he failed to find a treasure ship, Drake reputedly sailed as far north as the 38th parallel, landing on the coast of California on 17 June 1579. He found a good port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly relations with the Coast Miwok natives. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown, called Nova Albion—Latin for "New Britain". Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.

The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may have been altered to this end. All first-hand records from the voyage, including logs, paintings and charts, were lost when Whitehall Palace burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands – Drake's Plate of Brass – fitting the description in his account, was discovered in Marin County, California but was later declared a hoax. Now a National Historic Landmark, the officially recognised location of Drake's New Albion is Drakes Bay, California.

Across the Pacific and around Africa
Drake left the Pacific coast, heading southwest to catch the winds that would carry his ship across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the western Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After the sailors waited three days for convenient tides and had dumped cargo, they freed the barque. Befriending a sultan king of the Moluccas, Drake and his men became involved in some intrigues with the Portuguese there. He made multiple stops on his way toward the tip of Africa, eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Sierra Leoneby 22 July 1580.

Return to Plymouth (1580)
On 26 September, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth (and the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520).

The Queen declared that all written accounts of Drake's voyages were to become the Queen's secrets of the Realm, and Drake and the other participants of his voyages on the pain of death sworn to their secrecy; she intended to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain. Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. Taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, it was made of enamelled gold and bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull.

For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. On one side is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The "Drake Jewel", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Drake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_in_California
http://www.longcamp.com/nav.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1748 – Birth of Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood, English admiral (d. 1810)


Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (26 September 1748 – 7 March 1810) was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars, and frequently as Nelson's successor in commands.



Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (26 September 1748 – 7 March 1810) was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Horatio Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars, and frequently as Nelson's successor in commands. Cuthbert Collingwood, Baron Collingwood, by Henry Howard (died 1847). See source website for additional information.
This set of images was gathered by Usercoetzee from the National Portrait Gallery, London website using a special tool. All images in this batch have been confirmed as author died before 1939 according to the official death date listed by the NPG.

Commands held
Mediterranean Fleet
Collingwood's Squadron
HMS Triumph
HMS Barfleur
HMS Excellent
HMS Prince
HMS Mediator
HMS Sampson
HMS Pelican
HMS Hinchinbrook
HMS Badger

Battles/wars
American Revolutionary War

• Battle of Bunker Hill

French Revolutionary Wars

• Glorious First of June
• Battle of Cape St Vincent

Napoleonic Wars

• Battle of Trafalgar

Early years
Collingwood was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. His early education was at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle. At the age of twelve, he went to sea as a volunteer on board the frigate HMS Shannon under the command of his cousin Captain Richard Brathwaite (or Braithwaite), who took charge of his nautical education. He spent a total of only three years on dry land after joining the navy as a teenager. After several years of service under Captain Brathwaite and a short period attached to HMS Lenox, a guardship at Portsmouth commanded by Captain Robert Roddam, Collingwood sailed to Boston in 1774 with Admiral Samuel Graves on board HMS Preston, where he fought in the British naval brigade at the battle of Bunker Hill (June 1775), and was afterwards commissioned as a Lieutenant (17 June 1775).

In 1777, Collingwood first met Horatio Nelson when both served on the frigate HMS Lowestoffe. Two years later, Collingwood succeeded Nelson as Commander (20 June 1779) of the brig HMS Badger, and the next year he again succeeded Nelson as Post-Captain (22 March 1780) of HMS Hinchinbrook, a small frigate. Nelson had been the leader of a failed expedition to cross Central America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean by navigating boats along the San Juan River, Lake Nicaragua and Lake Leon. Nelson was debilitated by disease and had to recover before being promoted to a larger vessel, and Collingwood succeeded him in command of the Hinchinbrook and brought the remainder of the expedition back to Jamaica.

First major command
After commanding in another small frigate, HMS Pelican, in which he was shipwrecked by a hurricane in 1781, Collingwood was promoted to 64 gun ship of the line HMS Sampson, and in 1783 he was appointed to HMS Mediator and posted to the West Indies, where he remained until the end of 1786, again, together with Nelson and this time his brother, Captain Wilfred Collingwood, preventing American ships from trading with the West Indies.

In 1786 Collingwood returned to England, where, with the exception of a voyage to the West Indies, he remained until 1793. In that year, he was appointed captain of HMS Prince, the flagship of Rear Admiral George Bowyer in the Channel Fleet. On 16 June 1791, Collingwood married Sarah Blackett, daughter of the Newcastle merchant and politician John Erasmus Blackett and granddaughter of Robert Roddam (1711–1744) of Hethpoole and Caldburne (not to be confused with his former commander, Robert Roddam).

As captain of Barfleur, Collingwood was present at the Glorious First of June. On board the Excellent he participated in the victory of the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797, establishing a good reputation in the fleet for his conduct during the battle. After blockading Cadiz, he returned for a few weeks to Portsmouth to repair. At the beginning of 1799 Collingwood was raised to the rank of Rear-Admiral (of the White 14 February 1799; of the Red 1 January 1801) and, hoisting his flag in the Triumph, joined the Channel Fleet and sailed to the Mediterranean where the principal naval forces of France and Spain were assembled. Collingwood continued to be actively employed in blockading the enemy until the peace of Amiens allowed him to return to England.

With the resumption of hostilities with France in the spring of 1803 he left home, never to return. First he blockaded the French fleet off Brest. In 1804 he was promoted to Vice-Admiral (of the Blue 23 April 1804; of the Red 9 November 1805). Nearly two years were spent here but with Napoleon planning and equipping his armed forces for an invasion of Britain, the campaign which was to decide the fate of Europe and the command of the sea was starting. The French fleet having sailed from Toulon, Admiral Collingwood was appointed to command a squadron, with orders to pursue them. The combined fleets of France and Spain, after sailing to the West Indies, returned to Cadiz. On their way they encountered Collingwood's small squadron off Cadiz. He only had three ships with him; but he succeeded in avoiding the pursuit, although chased by sixteen ships of the line. Before half of the enemy's force had entered the harbour he resumed the blockade, using false signals to disguise the small size of his squadron. He was shortly joined by Nelson who hoped to lure the combined fleet into a major engagement.

Battle of Trafalgar
Main article: Battle of Trafalgar
The combined fleet sailed from Cadiz in October 1805. The Battle of Trafalgar immediately followed. Villeneuve, the French admiral, drew up his fleet in the form of a crescent. The British fleet bore down in two separate lines, the one led by Nelson in the Victory, and the other by Collingwood in the Royal Sovereign. The Royal Sovereign was the swifter sailer, mainly because its hull had been given a new layer of copper which lacked the friction of old, well used copper and thus was much faster. Having drawn considerably ahead of the rest of the fleet, it was the first engaged. "See", said Nelson, pointing to the Royal Sovereign as she penetrated the centre of the enemy's line, "see how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!" Probably it was at the same moment that Collingwood, as if in response to the observation of his great commander, remarked to his captain, "What would Nelson give to be here?"


Artist's conception of the situation at noon as Royal Sovereign was breaking into the Franco-Spanish line

Just before his column engaged the allied forces, Collingwood said to his officers: "Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter." Because the winds were very light during the battle, all the ships were moving extremely slowly, and the foremost British ships were under heavy fire from several of the allied ships for almost an hour before their own guns could bear.

The Royal Sovereign closed with the Spanish admiral's ship and fired her broadsides with such rapidity and precision at the Santa Ana that the Spanish ship was on the verge of sinking almost before another British ship had fired a gun. Several other vessels came to Santa Ana's assistance and hemmed in the Royal Sovereign on all sides; the latter, after being severely damaged, was relieved by the arrival of the rest of the British squadron, but was left unable to manoeuvre. Not long afterwards the Santa Ana struck her colours. On the death of Nelson, Collingwood assumed the command-in-chief, transferring his flag to the frigate Euryalus. Knowing that a severe storm was in the offing, Nelson had intended that the fleet should anchor after the battle, but Collingwood chose not to issue such an order: many of the British ships and prizes were so damaged that they were unable to anchor, and Collingwood concentrated efforts on taking damaged vessels in tow. In the ensuing gale, many of the prizes were wrecked on the rocky shore and others were destroyed to prevent their recapture, though no British ship was lost.


This is a small replica of the painting that Huggins executed for King William IV in 1837, when it was also exhibited at the British Institution. It shows the position of the fleets at 4.30 on the evening of 21 October in a rising gale. Huggins had already done a pair of large paintings of Trafalgar for the King, shown at Exeter Hall in 1834. The prime version of this one, which is chronologically the middle of the three subjects, seems to have been a separate commission. It has now emerged that it is an oil copy, with very slight variations, of a watercolour by Lieutenant Paul Harris Nicolas (1790-1860), who served as a 2nd lieutenant on the 74-gun 'Belleisle' at Trafalgar and was also a younger brother of (Sir) Nicholas Harris Nicolas, later editor of Nelson's dispatches. Inscriptions along the lower edge of the watercolour's frame identify the ships shown: to the left in stern view in the distance the French 'Redoutable', 74, lashed alongside the British 'Temeraire', 98, with the 'Fougueux' 74, on the latter's right but hidden by the dismasted hulk of the 'Santa Ana', 112, taken by the 'Royal Sovereign', Collingwood's 100-gun flagship. This is the principal subject in port-bow view, centre left, with only her foremast standing. To her right are Rear-Admiral Dumanoir and four French ships escaping southward, with 'Victory' in distant starboard-quarter view. An unnamed captured French ship is next, in stern view slightly to port with only mainmast standing, then the bow of the 'Santisima Trinidad', 130, in starboard view with the stern (in port-quarter view) of the 'Nepture' 98 beyond and the 'Leviathan', 74, at the far right edge of the composition. Nicolas is known to have done at least one other watercolour of the battle, showing the situation of the 'Belleisle' at 1.00 p.m. but the dates of execution are not known. He became full lieutenant in July 1808, served at Basque Roads in 1810 and went onto half-pay in September 1814. He lived to receive the Naval General Sevice medal and also wrote a history of the Royal Marines.

On 9 November 1805 Collingwood was promoted Vice-Admiral of the Red and raised to the peerage as Baron Collingwood, of Caldburne and Hethpool in the County of Northumberland. He also received the thanks of both Houses of Parliament and was awarded a pension of £2000 per annum. Together with all the other captains and admirals, he also received a Naval Gold Medal, his third, after those for the Glorious First of June and the Cape St Vincent. Only Nelson and Sir Edward Berry share the distinction of three gold medals for service during the wars against France.

When not at sea he resided at Collingwood House in the town of Morpeth which lies some 15 miles north of Newcastle upon Tyne and Chirton Hall in Chirton, now a western suburb of North Shields. He is known to have remarked, "whenever I think how I am to be happy again, my thoughts carry me back to Morpeth."

Later career
From Trafalgar until his death no great naval action was fought and, although several small French fleets would attempt to run the blockade, and one successfully landed troops in the Caribbean two months after Trafalgar, the majority were hunted down and overwhelmed in battle. Collingwood was occupied in important political and diplomatic transactions in the Mediterranean, in which he displayed tact and judgement. In 1805 he was appointed to the Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet. He requested to be relieved of his command that he might return home, however the government urgently required an admiral with the experience and skill of Collingwood to remain, on the grounds that his country could not dispense with his services in the face on the still potent threat that the French and their allies could pose. His health began to decline alarmingly in 1809 and he was forced to again request the Admiralty to allow him to return home, which was finally granted. Collingwood died as a result of cancer on board the Ville de Paris, off Port Mahonas he sailed for England, on 7 March 1810. He was laid to rest beside Nelson in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral.

Evaluation

Silhouette of Collingwood drawn by Horatio Nelson when both were serving in the West Indies

Collingwood's merits as a naval officer were in many respects of the first order. His political judgement was remarkable and he was consulted on questions of general policy, of regulation, and even of trade. He was opposed to impressment and to flogging and was considered so kind and generous that he was called "father" by the common sailors. Nelson and Collingwood enjoyed a close friendship, from their first acquaintance in early life until Nelson's death at Trafalgar; and they are both entombed in St Paul's Cathedral. As Collingwood died without male issue, his barony became extinct at his death.

Thackeray held that there was no better example of a virtuous Christian Knight than Collingwood. Dudley Pope relates an aspect of Collingwood at the beginning of chapter three of his Life in Nelson's Navy: "Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, later to become an admiral and Nelson's second in command at Trafalgar, had his home at Morpeth, in Northumberland, and when he was there on half pay or on leave he loved to walk over the hills with his dog Bounce. He always started off with a handful of acorns in his pockets, and as he walked he would press an acorn into the soil whenever he saw a good place for an oak tree to grow. Some of the oaks he planted are probably still growing more than a century and a half later ready to be cut to build ships of the line at a time when nuclear submarines are patrolling the seas, because Collingwood's purpose was to make sure that the Navy would never want for oaks to build the fighting ships upon which the country's safety depended." Collingwood once wrote to his wife that he'd rather his body be added to Britain's sea defences rather than given the pomp of a ceremonial burial.

Sailor Robert Hay who served with Collingwood wrote that: "He and his dog Bounce were known to every member of the crew. How attentive he was to the health and comfort and happiness of his crew! A man who could not be happy under him, could have been happy nowhere; a look of displeasure from him was as bad as a dozen at the gangway from another man". and that: "a better seaman, a better friend to seamen - a more zealous defender of the country's rights and honour, never trod the quarterdeck."

Descriptions

Letitia Elizabeth Landon celebrates the Admiral in her poem Admiral Lord Collingwood in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833.
Collingwood is fictionalized as "Admiral Sir John Thornton" in Patrick O'Brian's "The Ionian Mission."


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuthbert_Collingwood,_1st_Baron_Collingwood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Sovereign_(1786)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letitia_Elizabeth_Landon_(L._E._L.)_in_Fisher's_Drawing_Room_Scrap_Book,_1833/Admiral_Collingwood

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1771 - Launch of HMS Grafton, a 74 gun Albion-class Ship of the Line


HMS Grafton was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 26 September 1771 at Deptford Dockyard.
In 1779 she fought at the head of the British line at the Battle of Grenada, and in 1780 she was part of Rodney's fleet at the Battle of Martinique.
From 1792 Grafton was on harbour service, and she was broken up in 1816.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for building Grafton (1771), and with approved alterations dated 1778 for Fortitude (1780), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers. Signed by Thomas Slade [Surveyor of the Navy, 1755-1771].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80564.html#KTelzjw2epWZUqSZ.99


Chain Pump (ZAZ6789)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/86580.html#TZwU1fBPefKzpFbO.99


The Albion-class ships of the line were a class of five 74-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir Thomas Slade.

Design
Slade based the design of the Albion-class on the lines of the 90-gun ship Neptune.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the framing profile (disposition) for Fortitude (1780) and Irresistible (1782), both 74-gun Third Rate, two-deckers, based on Albion (1763).
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80569.html#l6IlyUj0FcSYId2e.99

Ships

• HMS Albion

Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Ordered: 1 December 1759
Launched: 16 May 1763
Fate: Wrecked, 1797


HMS Albion in a gale

• HMS Grafton

Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Ordered: 22 October 1767
Launched: 26 September 1771
Fate: Broken up, 1816

• HMS Alcide

Builder: Deptford Dockyard
Ordered: 21 August 1774
Launched: 30 July 1779
Fate: Broken up, 1817


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the quarterdeck and forecastle, upper deck, gun deck (lower deck), orlop deck with fore and aft platforms for Alcide (1779), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, as built at Deptford Dockyard.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80571.html#7Jty1fQQCbEBZ08k.99

• HMS Fortitude

Builder: Randall, Rotherhithe
Ordered: 2 February 1778
Launched: 23 March 1780
Fate: Broken up, 1820


Lines & Profile of a boat of the HMS Fortitude (ZAZ7347)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/87138.html#F1TIvqVM3ceZPPd5.99

• HMS Irresistible

Builder: Barnard, Harwich
Ordered: 8 July 1778
Launched: 6 December 1782
Fate: Broken up, 1806


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Grafton_(1771)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion-class_ship_of_the_line_(1763)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-316244;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=G

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1794 – Launch of French Forte, a 42 gun Forte-class frigate


Forte was a French 42-gun frigate, lead ship of her class.


Capture of 'La Forte', 28 February 1799 (PAD5620)
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/109771.html#sDBGziQjGJzuVqXb.99

Career
French service
Launched on 26 September 1794 and commissioned two months later under Commander Beaulieu-Leloup, Forte was part of a large frigate squadron under contre-amiral Sercey, also comprising Prudente, Régénérée, Vertu, Seine, Cybèle and Preneuse. The division sailed to Ile de France to raid commerce in the Indian Ocean.

On 15 May 1796 Forte, Vertu, Seine, and Régénérée were cruising between St Helena and the Cape of Good Hope hoping to capture British East Indiamen when they encountered the British whaler Lord Hawkesburyon her way to Walvis Bay. The French took off her crew, except for two seamen and a boy, and put Forte's fourth officer and 13-man prize crew aboard Lord Hawkesbury with orders to sail to Île de France. On her way there one of the British seamen, who was at the helm, succeeded in running her aground on the east coast of Africa a little north of the Cape, wrecking her. There were no casualties, but the prize crew became British prisoners.

Forte took part in the Action of 8 September 1796, where the frigates drove off two British 74-guns.

In 1797, Forte and Prudente were sent to Batavia to ferry troops. Command of Forte was given to Captain Ravenel. Against the wishes of Sercey, General Malartic restored Beaulieu to command.

While operating in the Bay of Bengal in early 1799, Forte captured a number of vessels. These were (with their master's name in parentheses):
Recovery (M'Kinley),
Chance (Johnson).
Yarmouth (Beck),
Endeavour(Eastwick),
Earl Mornington (Cook), and
Surprize (Moore). Forte also captured two unnamed vessels. She made a cartel of one of her captures and sent her into Madras.

On 24 February 1799, Forte encountered the East Indiaman Osterley. A sharp single-ship action developed, with Osterley losing four men killed and 13 wounded before she struck. Forte spent two days or so transferring some of Osterley's cargo before he let her and her crew proceed. Some accounts state that he released her as a cartel for an exchange of prisoners. Lloyd's List reported that the galley Surprizeparticipated in the engagement but escaped.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for Egyptienne (sistership of Forte captured 1801), a captured French Frigate, as taken off after fitting for a 38-gun Fifth Rate Frigate. This plan was received by William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793-1813] on 7 January 1807.
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/81870.html#pAG9Od9lPQhm9Qw0.99



Battle against HMS Sybille
Main article: Action of 28 February 1799
On 1 March 1799, off Bengal, Forte chased and captured two merchantmen. Around 22:00, as Forte sailed to take possession of her prize, a sail was detected leeward, which Beaulieu-Leloup deemed to be another merchantman in spite of the suspicions of his officers. The crew of Forte went to their sleeping quarters, and it took some time to realise that the strange ship was closing in and to call the crew to Battle Stations. When readied, Forte turned about and recognized the ship to be the 38-gun HMS Sybille, under Captain Edward Cooke.

At 12:15, Forte opened fire with a few shots, which were left unanswered until she came down the side of Sybille, at which point the British frigate delivered a full broadside, turned about and raked Forte with a second broadside. In the confusion of the battle, the gun crews of Forte were not advised that Sybille had circled around to starboard, and they kept firing their port guns at a ship whose silouhette could be seen through the smoke, but which was actually one of the prizes. After some time, the mistake was realised and the starboard battery was manned; however, as part of the crew of Forte had been dispatched to man her prizes, Fortewas too short-handed to man her forecastle guns.

At 1:40, a cannon-ball killed Captain Beaulieu-Leloup and command of Forte passed to Lieutenant Vigoureux. Around the same time, Captain Cooke was mortally wounded on Sybille and relinquished his own command. Vigoureux was killed at 2:00, and Lieutenant Luco took command. By that time, only four guns were still firing. Luco attempted to manoeuver, but the heavily damaged rigging collapsed at 2:25. Sybille inquired whether it was to be understood that Forte had struck her colours, and ceased fire when this was confirmed.

British service
Forte was taken into British service as HMS Forte. She was under the command of Captain Hardyman when she was wrecked on 29 January 1801 off Jeddah, in the Red Sea. She was entering the port with a pilot, William Briggs, when she struck a rock. Briggs knew of the rock, which was visible the whole time, but failed to issue any orders. Hardyman eventually ordered the helmsman to turn, but it was too late. Forte reached the shore and ran up the beach, where she capsized. The court martial board admonished Briggs to be more circumspect in the future and penalized him one year's seniority as a master.

Still, as her ship's company had served in the navy's Egyptian campaign (8 March to 8 September 1801), her officers and crew qualified for the clasp "Egypt" to the Naval General Service Medal, which the Admiralty authorised in 1850 for all surviving claimants.

Post-script
In 1811 French naval engineers examined the USS Constitution while she was visiting Cherbourg. The engineers compared the design of the American frigate to that of the lost Forte.


Plans of the French 24-pounder frigate Forte
Extrait de l’Atlas du Génie Maritime. Service historique de la Défense

The Forte class was a class of two frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1794 by François Caro. They carried 28 24-pounder long guns as their main battery, making them heavy frigates for their time.

• Forte

Builder: Lorient
Begun: 30 May 1794
Launched: 26 September 1794
Completed: November 1794
Fate: Captured by the British Navy on 1 March 1799, became HMS Forte, wrecked in 1801.

• Égyptienne

The French 24-pounder frigate Égyptienne.

Builder: Toulon
Begun: 26 September 1798
Launched: 17 July 1799
Completed: November 1799
Fate: Captured by the British Navy on 2 September 1801, became HMS Egyptienne, sold for breaking up 30 April 1817


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Forte_(1794)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forte-class_frigate

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1800 – Diligence-class Brig-Sloop HMS Hound (1796 - 16), William James Turquand, wrecked near Shetland.


HMS Hound was a brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. She had a short history. After her launch in 1796 she captured two privateers and destroyed a third before she was lost in 1800.


Diligence (1795); Seagull (1795); Curlew (1795); Harpy (1796); Hound (1796); Chamelion (1795) [alternative spelling: Cameleon]; Racoon (1795); Kangaroo (1795)
Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile, upper deck, lower deck with hold and platform for the oak-built Diligence (1795), Harpy (1796) and Hound (1796) and for the fir-built Seagull (1795), Curlew (1795), Chameleon[Cameleon] (1795), Racoon (1795) and Kangaroo (1795), all 16 (later 18) gun Brig Sloops.
The plan includes alterations in green ink to the position of the masts on board Harpy (1796) as a result of a request to the Board from Captain John Bazeley (captain seniority: 11 November 1794) in January 1799. His report stated that she sailed much better.
HARPY 1796






Career
She was commissioned in April 1796 under Commander John Wood for the North Sea.

In 1797 Hound was at Spithead and was caught up in the Spithead and Nore mutinies. A former member of her crew, Richard Parker, was the "President of the Delegates of the Fleet", i.e., the leaders of the mutiny, and Wood testified at Parker's trial.

On 26 March 1798, Hound detained the Danish brig Charlotte Juliana.

Hound and the hired armed lugger Black Joke captured the Minerva on 16 May.

On 14 June 1798 Hound encountered and captured the Dutch privateer lugger Seahound (or Zeehound) some 10 leagues off the Skaw. Seahound was pierced for 14 guns but only had five mounted. She also had four swivel guns, and a crew of 30 men. She was six weeks out of Holland.

On 23 June 1799 Hound encountered and captured the French privateer lugger Hirondelle, off the Skaw. Hirondelle was armed with five guns and two swivel guns, and had a crew of 26 men. She was three weeks from Dunkirk but had captured nothing.

Two days later, acting on information he had received of a large privateer cruising in the Bite or off the Skaw, Wood fell in with a large lugger that mounted 16 guns. After a chase of 14 hours, Hound succeeded in shooting away the lugger's main mast and driving her ashore between Robsnout and Hartshall. The wind was driving a heavy sea on the beach with the result that it soon dashed the lugger to pieces, and probably cost many of the lugger's crew their lives. Wood was pleased to have destroyed his quarry however, as she was one of the largest and fastest vessels on the coast and when he encountered her was trailing a British convoy from the Baltic.

In the late summer-early autumn, Hound took part in the Helder expedition, a joint Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland under the command of Vice-Admiral Andrew Mitchell. At the Neiuw Diep the British captured seven warships and 13 Indiamen and transports. Then Mitchell obtained the surrender of a squadron of the navy of the Batavian Republic in the Vlieter Incident. The Dutch surrendered twelve vessels ranging down in size from the 74-gun Washington to the 16-gun brig Galathea.

Commander William Turquand replaced Wood in April 1800.

Hound and Jaloue captured the cutter Rover on 10 May. That month Hound also captured the dogger Zeelust.

Loss
Hound disappeared during a storm in the Shetlands on 26 September 1800, and was presumed to have foundered with all hands. Wreckage identified as coming from Hound drifted ashore on the islands of Unst and Balta.


The Diligence class were built as a class of eight 18-gun brig-sloops for the Royal Navy. They were originally to have carried sixteen 6-pounder carriage guns, but on 22 April 1795 it was instructed that they should be armed with sixteen 32-pounder carronades, although two of the 6-pounders were retained as chase guns in the bows. Consequently they were classed as 18-gun sloops. However, in service it was found that this armament proved too heavy for these vessels, and so in most vessels the 32-pounder carronades were replaced by 24-pounder ones.

Of the eight vessels in the class, three foundered at sea with the loss of their crews, and one was wrecked. The others continued in service until withdrawn.

One of the Surveyors of the Navy - John Henslow - designed the class. The Admiralty approved the design on 22 April 1795, and ordered five vessels on 4 March 1795; their names were assigned and registered on 20 June. The Admiralty ordered three more in July 1795; these were named and registered on 28 August.

Construction
In early 1795 the Admiralty identified the need for additional brig-sloops to meet the urgent need for convoy duties, and - as per their usual practice - commissioned two different designs, one from each Surveyor. Five vessels to each design were ordered in March 1795, with a further three to each design following in July.

Two of the first orders (Curlew and Seagull) were constructed of "fir" (actually, pine), while the other three were of the normal oak construction. The three ordered in July were all also of fir construction. Fir-built vessels could be constructed more rapidly; hence all five of these were launched by the end of October 1795, when the three built of the conventional oak were still all on the stocks. However, it was recognised that fir hulls deteriorated faster; the use of fir was seen as a stop-gap measure to get them faster into service, but with the knowledge that they would not last as long.



Ships
Name - Launched - Fate
HMS Curlew - 16 July 1795 - Lost, presumed to have foundered in a storm in the North Sea in December 1796.
HMS Diligence - 24 November 1795 - Wrecked off Cuba on 8 October 1800.
HMS Seagull - July 1795 - Lost, presumed to have foundered in the Channel in February 1805.
HMS Harpy - February 1796 - Sold to be broken up on 10 September 1817.
HMS Hound - 24 March 1796 - Lost, presumed to have foundered in a storm in the Shetland Islands on 26 September 1800.
HMS Kangaroo - 30 September 1795 - Sold to be broken up in February 1802.
HMS Cameleon - 14 October 1795 - Sold to be broken up in April 1811.
HMS Racoon - 14 October 1795 - Sold to be broken up in April 1806.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hound_(1796)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diligence-class_brig-sloop

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1805 - HMS Calcutta captured by french squadron
HMS Calcutta (50), Cptn. Daniel Woodriff, whilst escorting a convoy near the Scillies drew off a French squadron of a three-decker and four ships-of-the-line with frigates and other vessels. She was captured by French ship-of-the-line Magnanime and frigate Armide (44) but all the convoy except 1 ship made their escape.


HMS Calcutta (1788/1795 - 56) was the East Indiaman Warley, converted to a Royal Navy 56-gun fourth rate. This ship of the line served for a time as an armed transport. She also transported convicts to Australia in a voyage that became a circumnavigation of the world. The French 74-gun Magnanime captured Calcutta in 1805. In 1809, after she ran aground during the Battle of the Basque Roads and her crew had abandoned her, a British boarding party burned her.

Tons burthen: 1175 (bm)
Length:

• 156 ft 11 in (47.8 m) (overall);
• 129 ft 7 3⁄4 in (39.5 m) (keel)

Beam: 41 ft 3 1⁄2 in (12.6 m)
Draught:17 ft 2 in (5.2 m)
Complement:

• East Indiaman: 125
• Royal Navy: 324; 160 as storeship

Armament:

• East Indiaman: 26 x 9-pounder guns
• Royal Navy:
• Lower deck: 28 x 18-pounder guns
• Upper deck: 26 x 32-pounder cannonades + 2 x 9-pounder guns

East Indiaman
The East Indiaman Warley was built at John Perry's Blackwall Yard in 1788, the first vessel of the name that Perry built for the East India Company. She made two trading voyages to the Far East for the East India Company. Warley's captain for her two voyages was Henry Wilson. He received a letter of marque on 7 September 1793.

First EIC voyage (1789–90)
Captain Henry Wilson sailed from Falmouth on 8 March 1789, bound for Madras and China. Warley reached Madras on 22 June, left on 9 August, and arrived at Whampoa on 28 September. Homeward bound, she crossed the Second Bar on 11 February 1790, reached St Helena on 28 April, and arrived at the Downs on 23 June.

Second EIC voyage (1793–94)
Captain Henry Wilson sailed from the Downs on 19 January 1793, again bound for Madras and China. Warley reached the Cape of Good Hope on 3 April, and arrived at Madras on 30 May.

By 6 July 1793, Warley was off Pondicherry with Admiral Cornwallis's squadron. Warley, Triton, and Royal Charlotte, together with HMS Minerva, participated in the capture of Pondicherry by maintaining a blockade of the port. By 28 August 1793, Warley was back at Madras. The Indiamen then sailed for China in early September.

By 4 October 1793, the East Indiamen were at Penang, and two weeks later at Malacca. On their way to China, the East Indiamen participated in an action in the Straits of Malacca. They came upon a French frigate, with some six or seven of her prizes, replenishing her water casks ashore. The three British vessels immediately gave chase. The frigate fled towards the Sunda Strait. The Indiamen were able to catch up with a number of the prizes, and after a few cannon shots, were able to retake them. The British restored the prizes to their crews and took the French prize crews as prisoners of war. Had they not carried letters of marque, such behaviour might well have qualified as piracy.

Warley arrived at Whampoa on 13 December. When Warley was at Whampoa that December she joined other East Indiamen there, among which were several that on their return to Britain the Admiralty would purchase: Royal Charlotte, Ceres, Earl of Abergavenny, and Hindostan. The British Government had chartered Hindostan to take Lord Macartney to China in an unsuccessful attempt to open diplomatic and commercial relations with the Chinese empire.

Homeward bound, Warley crossed the Second Bar on 13 March 1794. She reached St Helena on 18 June, and arrived at the Downs on 7 September.

Cruiser and armed transport
In early 1795, the Royal Navy purchased Warley and had her original builders, Perry & Co., refit her as a 56-gun fourth rate, under the name Calcutta, at a cost of £10,300. She was one of nine large merchantmen that the Navy Board purchased that year for conversion to convoy escorts.

Captain William Bligh was her first commander, assigned to her to supervise her conversion. He took command on 16 April 1795 and commissioned her in May. In October 1795, the crew of the 74-gun HMS Defiance (then commanded by Captain Sir George Horne) mutinied. Bligh, in Calcutta, was ordered to embark 200 troops and take them alongside Defiance so that they might board her and regain control. The threat of the soldiers ended the mutiny for the time being, though the crew of the Defiance mutinied again in 1797 and 1798. Bligh continued to command Calcutta until she was paid off in February 1796 and transferred to the Transport Board.

In order for her to fulfill her new role, the Transport Board had the guns on her lower deck removed. As a result she no longer needed as large a crew and her complement fell to 160 officers and men. Calcutta served in the transport role under Lieutenants Robert Arnold (June 1796 – August 1797), Edward Jekyll Canes (August 1797 – January 1798), Richard Pouldon (or Poulden, or Polden; January 1798 – December 1799). and John Anderson (December 1799 – May 1802).

Under Poulden Calcutta was at the capture of Menorca in December 1798. On 11 November she was part of a squadron that unsuccessfully chased four Spanish frigates, though two days later Argo recaptured the sloop Peterel, which the Spaniards had captured on the 11th.

Lieutenant John Anderson (December 1799 – May 1802) replaced Pouldon. On 6 June 1800 he sailed Calcutta to Gibraltar, carrying the Banffshire Fencibles.

Convict transport
Further information on the 1803 British settlement: History of Victoria


Calcutta and Ocean at anchor in Port Phillip

Between May 1802 and February 1803, the Navy had Calcutta fitted out as a transport for convicts being sent to Britain's penal colonies in Australia. She received new armament in the form of sixteen 24-pounder carronades on her upper deck and two six-pounder guns on the forecastle. Captain Daniel Woodriff recommissioned her in November 1802 and sailed her from Spithead on 28 April 1803, accompanied by Ocean, to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Calcutta carried a crew of 150 and 307 male convicts, along with civil officers, marines, and some 30 wives and children of the convicts. The Reverend Robert Knopwood kept a journal on the voyage.

Calcutta arrived at Teneriffe on 13 May; five convicts had died on that leg, suggesting that many had probably been embarked already in bad health. She reached Rio de Janeiro on 19 July, and the Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope on 16 August.

While Calcutta was at the Cape, a vessel arrived with news that Britain was now at war with the Batavian Republic. The colony's Dutch commodore sent a representative aboard Calcutta to demand her surrender and that of her contents. While the representative waited, Woodriff spent two hours preparing her for battle. He then showed the representative her sailors and marines at their guns, and told the Dutchman to inform the commodore that
"if he wants this ship he must come and take her if he can".
To speed up the preparations, William Gammon, the master's mate, had asked the convicts if any would volunteer to fight and work the ship. All volunteered. The commodore gave Woodriff 24 hours to leave, saying that he "did not wish to capture such a large number of thieves".

On 12 October, she reached her destination; by this time another three convicts had died. Of the eight convicts that died, one had drowned in an escape attempt at the Cape.

At Port Phillip David Collins, the commander of the expedition, found that the poor soil and shortage of fresh water made the area unsuitable for a colony. Collins wanted to move the colony to the Derwent River on the south coast of Tasmania (then Van Diemens Land) to the site of current-day Hobart. Woodriff refused the use of Calcutta, arguing that Ocean was large enough to transport the colony, and that he was under orders to pick up naval supplies for transport to England.

In December Woodriff sailed to Sydney where he took on a cargo of lumber. At midnight on 4 March, Woodriff landed 150 of his crew and marines to assist the New South Wales Corps and the Loyal Association, a local militia, in suppressing a convict uprising in support of the Castle Hill convict rebellion, a revolt by some 260 Irish convicts against Governor King. Afterward, the commander of the marine detachment on Calcutta, Charles Menzies, offered his services to the governor as superintendent of a new settlement at Coal Harbour, an offer Governor King accepted. Another Calcutta officer, Lieut. John Houston, accepted an appointment as acting Lieutenant Governor of Norfolk Island while Major Joseph Foveaux was on leave.

Calcutta left on 17 March 1804, doubled Cape Horn and reached Rio on 22 May. In reaching Rio, she had thus circumnavigated the world in ten months three days. She arrived at Spithead on 23 July.

Ship of the line


The action of September 1805 in which the French captured HMS Calcutta, by Thomas Whitcombe

In September 1804, the Admiralty again fitted out Calcutta for duty as a cruiser, re-arming her as a 56-gun fourth rate.

Capture
On 3 August 1805, Calcutta, still under the command of Captain Woodriff, left St Helena as escort of a motley convoy to England. The convoy consisted of the East India company's "extra-ship" Indus, from Madras, the southern whaler African from Desolation, the whaler Fox from the Mozambique channel, the whaler Grand Sachem from the Peruvian coast and bound to Milford, the Prussian ship Wilhelmina, which Calcutta had detained on her way out to St Helena, and the large Swedish ship Carolina, which was sailing from China and asked to join.

On 14 September 1805, the brig Brothers, of London, from Tobago, joined the convoy. She had gotten separated from her convoy in a gale. Unfortunately, she was leaky and a very slow sailer.

On 25 September 1805, the convoy was in the Channel south of the Isles of Scilly when lookouts spotted a number of unknown vessels in the distance. Calcutta moved to position herself between the convoy and the unknown flotilla.

Next morning, it became clear that the unknown vessels were probably French so Calcutta signalled the convoy to make sail without her and moved to intercept the French vessels. She sailed towards the nearest vessel, which turned out to be the 40-gun frigate Armide. The engagement was desultory but Calcutta succeeded in luring the French southward and away from the convoy. As a result, the French detached the brig Sylph which captured only the slow-sailing Brothers.

However, eventually the rest of the French squadron started to arrive. It turned out this was Allemand's squadron, which included the 74-gun Magnanime. Woodriff brought Calcutta alongside Magnanime, but after a battle of some three-quarters of an hour was forced to strike. The French had shot high, bringing down Calcutta's rigging, disabling her. Because they fired high, Calcutta suffered only six dead and six wounded out of a crew of 350.[20][21] The French brought Calcutta into French service the next day and retained her name.

Woodriff was imprisoned at Verdun and appealed to Talleyrand for release, without success until in early 1807 the French sent him to Saint-Malo. There the French government provided him a vessel under cartel to take him to England. The British government immediately reciprocated by releasing a French officer of equal rank. The court-martial on Gladiator, on 1 January 1808, for Woodriff and his officers acquitted all, praising the captain for his gallantry and skilful manoeuvring, which had allowed the convoy to escape.

The owners and underwriters on the ship and cargo of the Indus, one of the East Indiamen that Calcutta had saved, proposed a subscription of 21 percent on the amount insured. The resulting money was to be presented to Woodriffe and his officers and crew as a small token of gratitude.

French service
On 12 April 1809, Calcutta was part of the squadron of La Rochelle under captain Jean Baptiste Lafon. During the Battle of the Basque Roads, Calcutta ran aground on the shoals of Les Palles, as did most of the other French ships. Under fire from Imperieuse under Captain Lord Cochrane, Calcutta's crew panicked and abandoned ship without orders. A midshipman with a small party from Imperieuse took over Calcutta, but then set her afire to prevent her re-capture, causing her to explode.


Régulus stranded on the shoals of Les Palles, 12 April 1809; Calcutta is on the right, also aground.

A court-martial held Lafon responsible for the loss of his ship, and deemed his behaviour to have been cowardly. In a five to four vote, the court sentenced him to death; a firing squad executed him on the deck of Océan on 9 September.

Other information
The National Library of Australia has three oil paintings by Thomas Whitcombe of the battle between Calcutta and Magnanime and Armide.


Magnanime (1803 - 74) was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.


Magnanime towing Commerce de Paris, by Ange-Joseph Antoine Roux, 1809.

Her keel was laid in June 1802, and she was launched in Rochefort on 18 August 1803.
She took part in Allemand's expedition of 1805 under Captain Pierre-Francois Violette. On 26 September 1805, flanked by Armide, she attacked and captured HMS Calcutta.
She was decommissioned in 1816.


Armide (1804 - 40) was a 40-gun Armide-class frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her class, and launched in 1804 at Rochefort. She served briefly in the French navy before the British captured her in 1806. She went on to serve in the British Navy until 1815 when she was broken up.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Calcutta_(1795)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Magnanime_(1803)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Armide_(1804)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1810 - Launch of HMS Astraea, a 36 gun Apollo-class frigate


HMS Astraea (frequently spelled HMS Astrea) was a Royal Navy 36-gun fifth rate Apollo-class frigate, launched- in 1810 at Northam. She participated in the Battle of Tamatave and in an inconclusive single-ship action with the French frigate Etoile. Astrea was broken up in 1851.

Indian Ocean
Astraea's first deployment was to the Cape of Good Hope under Captain Charles Marsh Schomberg. Shortly after his arrival, Schomberg was ordered to join the squadron of Captain Philip Beaver on the newly captured Mauritius. When Beaver sailed for the Seychellesin March 1811, the command of the naval forces on the island devolved to Schomberg.

On 6 May 1811, a French squadron of frigates under the command of Commodore François Roquebert in Renommée approached Grand Port, not realizing that Isle de France (now Mauritius) had fallen to the British. A squadron under James Hillyar chased them off. They also escaped an encounter with squadron under Captain Schomberg.

Schomberg took command of Hillyar's squadron and pursued the French to Tamatave on Madagascar. Between 7 and 9 May the frigates Galatea and Phoebe, under James Hillyar, and the brig-sloop Racehorse, sighted the French 40-gun frigates Renommée, Clorindeand Néréide off the Isle de France, whilst Astraea was lying in Port Louis.


Battle of Tamatave (Action of 20 May 1811)

On 14 May Astraea, Phoebe, Galatea, and Racehorse sailed from Port Louis for Tamatave, Madagascar and arrived on 20 May. The British squadron sighted the French squadron and made chase. A severe engagement, the Battle of Tamatave, ensued. During the battle, Renommée and Clorinde badly battered Galatea, with the result that she lost 16 men killed and 46 wounded - the largest number of casualties of any vessel in the squadron. Astraea too was heavily engaged and the British captured Renommée. Roquebert had sacrificed his flagship and ultimately his life to allow the frigates Clorinde and the badly damaged Néréide to escape. Astrea lost two men killed and 16 men wounded. In 1847 the Admiralty authorized the award of the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Off Tamatave 20 May 1811" to all surviving claimants from the action.

Five days later, Schomberg's squadron rediscovered Néréide at Tamatave. The British persuaded the town's commander to surrender the town and Néréide without any further fight. The British took Néréide as Madagascar. The battle was the last action of the Mauritius campaign.

On 19 September she and Racehorse captured the French slaver brig Eclair.

After Beaver died in April 1813, Schomberg moved to Beaver's flagship, HMS Nisus. Captain John Eveleigh then took command of Astraea.

Astrea vs. Etoile
Main article: Battle of Maio

In early 1814 Astrea was in company with Creole, which was under the command of Captain George Charles Mackenzie, who was Eveleigh's senior. The two frigates sailed for the Cape Verde Islands; they reached Maio early on 23 January 1814.

Off the Cape Verde Islands they encountered two frigates and two merchant ships, one a brigantine and the other a schooner, all at anchor. The French frigates did not respond to the Portuguese and Spanish flags that the British set and instead set sail as the British frigates approached; the British frigates then pursued them. Astrea had problems with her sails so Creole pulled ahead. She exchanged some shots and eventually four broadsides with the rearmost French frigate, which would turn out to be Sultane. Astraea then sailed between Creole and her opponent, coming alongside the French frigate. Two broadsides from Astrea then temporarily silenced the French frigate as fires aboard Creole took her out of the action for a while. She re-engaged Sultane, but then disengaged and sailed towards Santiago.

Astraea went ahead in pursuit of the first French frigate, which turned out to be the Etoile. Astraea exchanged a broadside and then crossed Etoile's bow and raked her. At this moment a shot took away Astraea's wheel and killed both quartermasters, causing Astraea to lose direction and momentum. Now the situation reversed, with French guns nearly touching Astraea's taffrail. She received broadsides that tore away her lower rigging, scarred her deck and destroyed one of her carronades. However, she suffered no damage forward. Astrea was able to get starboard to starboard with her opponent. The two vessels exchanged broadsides at close range for two hours until Etoile sailed off. During the engagement a pistol shot hit Eveleigh below the heart, mortally wounding him. Sultane came up and also exchanged a broadside with Astrea. Astrea, much damaged, broke off the engagement as the two French frigates too sailed away. Creole had suffered ten men dead and 26 wounded; Astrea lost nine men dead and 37 wounded.


Capture of the Étoile by the Hebrus off Cape La Hogue - 26 March 1814

That evening the two British ships anchored in Porto Praya on Santiago to effect repairs. (Hebrus later captured Etoile.) Command of Astraea passed to Captain William Black.

On 6 June, Astrea and Creole were in company when they captured the Spanish slave ship Gestruydis la Preciosa, and her cargo of slaves. At this time Astrea was under the command of Captain Benjamin Askley.

Fate
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Astraea spent seven years in ordinary. In 1823 the Navy converted her into hospital ship, in which state she remained until she was broken up in 1851.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Astraea_(1810)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-class_frigate

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1812 – Launch of HMS Stag, a 36 gun Apollo-class frigate


HMS Stag:
Ordered - 17.10.1810
Keel Laid Down - 1.1811
Launched - 26.9.1812
How acquired - Purpose built
Shipyard - Deptford Dockyard
Ship Class - Apollo Class
Designed by - William Rule (d.1816)
Constructor - Robert Nelson
Category - Fifth Rate
Ship Type - Frigate
Sailing Rig - Ship Rigged
Broken Up - 20.9.1821

Dimensions​

Dimension - Measurement - Type - Metric Equivalent
Length of Gundeck - 145' 0"Imperial Feet - 44.196
Length of Keel - 121' 8 ¾"Imperial Feet - 36.8999
Breadth - 38' 3"Imperial Feet - 11.5824
Depth in Hold - 13' 3 ½"Imperial Feet - 3.9751
Draught Forward - 10' 2"Imperial Feet - 3.048
Draught Aft - 13' 11"Imperial Feet - 3.9624
Burthen - 947 30⁄94Tons BM

Armament​

at 26.9.1812 launch date
Broadside Weight = 476 Imperial Pound ( 215.866 kg)
Upper Gun Deck - 26 British 18-Pounder
Quarterdeck - 10 British 32-Pound Carronade
Quarterdeck - 2 British 9-Pounder
Forecastle - 4 British 32-Pound Carronade
Forecastle - 2 British 9-Pounder

Service History​

Date - Event
26.9.1812 - Began fitting at Deptford Dockyard
11.1812 - Completed fitting at Deptford Dockyard
30.3.1813 - Took the Privateer La Miquelonnaise (1812 - 18) in latitude 48 deg. 30 min. N. and longitude 6 deg. 30 min. W.BG
19.5.1813 - Sailed for the Cape of Good Hope
11.1814 - Laid up at Plymouth
1.1821 - Laid up at Sheerness
20.9.1821 - Broken up at Sheerness


The Apollo-class sailing frigates were a series of twenty-seven ships that the British Admiralty commissioned be built to a 1798 design by Sir William Rule. Twenty-five served in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, two being launched too late.

Of the 25 ships that served during the Napoleonic Wars, only one was lost to enemy action. Of the entire class of 27 ships, only two were lost to wrecking, and none to foundering.

The Admiralty ordered three frigates in 1798–1800. Following the Peace of Amiens, it ordered a further twenty-four sister-ships to the same design between 1803 and 1812. The last was ordered to a fresh 38-gun design. Initially, the Admiralty split the order for the 24 vessels equally between its yards and commercial yards, but two commercial yards failed to perform and the Admiralty transferred these orders to its own dockyards, making the split 14–10 as between the Admiralty and commercial yards.

Ships in class

• HMS Apollo
  • Builder: John Dudman, Deptford Wharf
  • Ordered: 15 September 1798
  • Laid down: November 1798
  • Launched: 16 August 1799
  • Completed: 5 October 1799 at Deptford Dockyard
  • Fate: Wrecked off Portugal on 2 April 1804.

The frigate HMS Apollo sinks on 2 April 1804

• HMS Blanche
  • Builder: John Dudman, Deptford Wharf
  • Ordered: 18 January 1799
  • Laid down: February 1800
  • Launched: 2 October 1800
  • Completed: 17 January 1801 at Deptford Dockyard.
  • Fate: Captured and burnt by the French 19 July 1805.
• HMS Euryalus
  • Builder: Balthazar and Edward Adams, Bucklers Hard.
  • Ordered: 16 August 1800
  • Laid down: October 1801
  • Launched: 6 June 1803
  • Completed: 9 August 1803 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up 16 August 1860 at Gibraltar.

A depiction of the events of 22 October 1805, the day following the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, off Cape Trafalgar, Province of Cádiz, Spain. Admiral Lord Nelson's ship H.M.S. Victory is heading towards the shore while H.M.S. Royal Sovereign is being towed by H.M.S. Euryalus.

• HMS Dartmouth
  • Builder: Mr Cook, Dartmouth (originally Benjamin Tanner, at same yard, but he became bankrupt in February 1807)
  • Ordered: 17 March 1803 originally; re-ordered 2 June 1809
  • Laid down: July 1804
  • Launched: 28 August 1813
  • Completed: 20 September 1813 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Hulked 1830 for quarantine service. Broken up November 1854.
• HMS Creole
  • Builder: Plymouth Dockyard (originally Benjamin Tanner, but he became bankrupt in February 1807)
  • Ordered: 17 March 1803 originally; re-ordered 23 December 1810
  • Laid down: September 1811
  • Launched: 1 May 1813
  • Completed: 20 August 1813 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Broken up August 1833.
• HMS Semiramis
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 25 March 1806
  • Laid down: April 1807
  • Launched: 25 July 1808
  • Completed: 6 September 1808
  • Fate: Broken up November 1844.
• HMS Owen Glendower
  • Builder: Thomas Steemson, Paull (near Hull)
  • Ordered: 1 October 1806
  • Laid down: January 1807
  • Launched: 19 November 1808
  • Completed: 22 March 1809 at Chatham Dockyard
  • Fate: Prison ship 1842; sold for break-up 1884.

HMS Owen Glendower, c. 1820s, from the collection of the Royal Naval Museum.

• HMS Curacoa
  • Builder: Robert Guillaume, Northam (Southampton)
  • Ordered: 1 October 1806
  • Laid down: January 1808
  • Launched: 23 September 1809
  • Completed: 23 January 1810 at Portsmouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Cut down into 24-gun sixth rate 1831. Broken up March 1849.
• HMS Saldanha
  • Builder: Simon Temple, South Shields
  • Ordered: 1 October 1806
  • Laid down: March 1807
  • Launched: 8 December 1809
  • Completed: 1810
  • Fate: Lost at sea with her entire crew 4 December 1811.
• HMS Hotspur
  • Builder: George Parsons, Warsash
  • Ordered: 1 October 1806
  • Laid down: August 1807
  • Launched: 13 October 1810
  • Completed: 9 February 1811 at Portsmouth Dockyard
  • Fate: Broken up January 1821.
• HMS Havannah
  • Builder: Wilson and Company, Liverpool
  • Ordered: 1 October 1806
  • Laid down: March 1808
  • Launched: 26 March 1811
  • Completed: 29 July 1811 at Plymouth Dockyard
  • Fate: 1860 "Ragged School Ship", Cardiff; sold for breaking up in 1905.
• HMS Malacca
  • Builder: "Prince of Wales Island" (Penang), Malaya
  • Ordered: 19 February 1807
  • Laid down: February 1808
  • Launched: 6 March 1809
  • Completed: 28 October 1810 at Woolwich Dockyard
  • Fate: Broken up in March 1816.
• HMS Orpheus
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 27 February 1807
  • Laid down: August 1808
  • Launched: 12 August 1809
  • Completed: 21 September 1809.
  • Fate: Broken up at Chatham Dockyard in August 1819.
• HMS Leda
  • Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
  • Ordered: 23 March 1808
  • Laid down: October 1808
  • Launched: 9 November 1809
  • Completed: 8 December 1809.
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up on 30 April 1817.
• HMS Theban
  • Builder: George Parsons, Warsash
  • Ordered: May 1808
  • Laid down: June 1808
  • Launched: 22 December 1809
  • Completed: 25 April 1810 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
  • Fate: Broken up at Plymouth Dockyard in May 1817.
• HMS Manilla
  • Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
  • Ordered: 29 December 1806
  • Laid down: October 1807
  • Launched: 11 September 1809
  • Completed: 18 October 1809.
  • Fate: Wrecked 28 January 1812
• HMS Astraea
  • Builder: Robert Guillaume, Northam (Southampton)
  • Ordered: 26 September 1808
  • Laid down: December 1808
  • Launched: May 1810
  • Completed: 24 September 1810 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
  • Fate: Broken up at Plymouth Dockyard in April 1851.
• HMS Belvidera
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 28 September 1808
  • Laid down: December 1808
  • Launched: 23 December 1809
  • Completed: 16 February 1810.
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up in July 1906.

Battle between HMS Belvidera and USS President on 23 August 1812

• HMS Galatea
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 12 May 1809
  • Laid down: August 1809
  • Launched: 31 August 1810
  • Completed: 18 October 1810.
  • Fate: Hulked in 1836; coal hulk (Jamaica) in 1840; broken up in 1849.

H.M. Frigate Galatea, 38 Guns off the Needles, Isle Of Wight, by Thomas Whitcombe

• HMS Maidstone
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 8 January 1810
  • Laid down: September 1810
  • Launched: 18 October 1811
  • Completed: 13 December 1811.
  • Fate: Coal hulk 1838. Broken up in January 1867.
• HMS Stag
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 17 October 1810
  • Laid down: January 1811
  • Launched: 26 September 1812
  • Completed: November 1812.
  • Fate: Broken up in September 1821.
• HMS Magicienne
  • Builder: Daniel List, Binstead, Isle of Wight
  • Ordered: 14 December 1810
  • Laid down: April 1811
  • Launched: 8 August 1812
  • Completed: 24 October 1812 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
  • Fate: Broken up in March 1845.
• HMS Pallas
  • Builder: Portsmouth Dockyard (originally Robert Guillaume, Northam, Southampton, but he became bankrupt in 1813)
  • Ordered: 19 March 1811 originally; re-ordered 10 December 1813
  • Laid down: May 1811 by Guillaume; re-laid April 1814 at Portsmouth
  • Launched: 13 April 1816
  • Completed: 27 April 1816 at Portsmouth Dockyard.
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up on 11 January 1862.
• HMS Barrosa
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 4 April 1811
  • Laid down: October 1811
  • Launched: 21 October 1812
  • Completed: 10 December 1812.
  • Fate: Sold to be broken up on 27 May 1841.
• HMS Tartar
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 6 January 1812
  • Laid down: October 1812
  • Launched: 6 April 1814
  • Completed: 6 May 1814.
  • Fate: Broken up in September 1859.
• HMS Brilliant
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 11 December 1812
  • Laid down: November 1813
  • Launched: 28 December 1814
  • Completed: 5 March 1815.
  • Fate: Training ship 1860, renamed Briton 8 November 1889. Sold to be broken up on 12 May 1908.
• HMS Blonde – re-ordered to a radically new design from 1816.
  • Builder: Deptford Dockyard
  • Ordered: 11 December 1812
  • Laid down: March 1816
  • Launched: 12 January 1819
  • Completed: 1824.
  • Fate: Receiving ship in November 1850, renamed Calypso on 9 March 1870. Sold to be broken up on 28 February 1895.

'The H. M. S. Blonde', by Robert Dampier, 1825, Washington Place


https://threedecks.org/index.php?display_type=show_ship&id=6586#BWAS-1793
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-class_frigate

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1814 - The Battle of Fayal
Boats of HMS Plantagenet (74), Cptn. Robert Lloyd, and HMS Rota (38), Cptn. Somerville, covered by HMS Carnation (18), George Bentahm, repulsed by American privateer schooner General Armstrong, Cptn. Samuel C. Reid, at anchor in the road at Fayal in the Azores.


The Battle of Fayal was an engagement fought in September 1814 during the war between the United States and the United Kingdom at the Portuguese colony of Fayal in the Azores. Three British warships and several boats filled with sailors and marines under assignment for the Louisiana Campaign attacked an American privateer in port. After repulsing two attacks from British troops and sailors, killing one of their commanders, the Americans won a tactical victory but scuttled their ship the following morning to prevent it from being captured.


"The American Privateer General Armstrong Capt. Sam. C. Reid" by Nethaniel Currier, circa 1830.

Background
The Royal Navy ship HMS Plantagenet of seventy-four guns, commanded by Captain Robert Loyd, was sailing to the West Indies with the thirty-eight gun frigate HMS Rota and the eighteen gun brig-sloop HMS Carnation for the Louisiana Campaign. On the night of September 26, the three were in company and cruising in Fayal Roads when they spotted the Baltimore Clipper General Armstrong, a brig of seven guns with a complement of about ninety men. She was commanded by Captain Samuel Chester Reid who was not prepared to surrender his ship. Captain Loyd ordered that a pinnace under Lieutenant Robert Faussett be sent from the Plantagenet to ascertain the nationality of the stranger in port. When the British came within gun range of the American vessel and requested that its crew identify themselves, Captain Reid declared that he would fire if the British came any closer.

Battle


"Night battle of the Privateer Brig General Armstrong of New York" by Emanuel Leutze.

According to British reports, Lieutenant Faussett was unable to stop his boat in the rough tide water and it drifted too close to the General Armstrong. The Americans then opened fire with their long 9-pounders and scored hits on the pinnace. Two men were killed and seven others wounded before it was able to retire out of range. Carnation then immediately moved in and anchored in front of the American schooner to begin negotiations for a solution to the problem. When discussions failed and now that the General Armstrong had fired the first shot in a neutral port, Carnation cut her cable and lowered four boats filled with heavily armed men and headed towards Captain Reid as he maneuvered his ship closer to shore. The first attack came at about 8:00 pm and when the American observed the incoming boats they maneuvered again to receive them. In the following skirmish, Carnation was kept out of range by enemy fire and the boats were repulsed with a loss estimated by Reid to be twenty dead and twenty wounded. One American was killed and another wounded.

At about 9:00 pm, twelve boats armed with carronades and filled with 180 marines and sailors from the Plantagenet and the Rota were towed into battle by the Carnation, which stopped out of gun range. There the boats divided into three divisions for another attack. Lieutenant William Matterface commanded the boats and Carnation was directed to provide covering fire. Loyd anchored the Rota and the Plantagenet a few miles away and they did not participate in the engagement. Just after 9:00 pm the British headed forward, the boats advanced but accurate American fire and the current kept the Carnation from closing the range and she was damaged. It took Lieutenant Matterface until about 12:00 am for his boats to reach the General Armstrong, largely due to the current but partly because of where Loyd had stopped his ships. While the Americans were waiting they offloaded three of their cannon and erected a battery so when the British arrived, a boarding was attempted but the American gunners sank two of the British boats before they could get close, captured two more and killed many of the boarders with swords and musketry at point blank range. Lieutenant Matterface and several other officers were killed and no one of sufficient rank survived to lead the remaining Britons.


"The Privateer Brig General Armstrong Captain S. C. Reid Commander. Which fought a thrilling battle in the Harbor of Fayal."

Altogether thirty-six sailors of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines were killed in action, another ninety-three were wounded. The main action lasted over a half hour and only two Americans were killed and seven wounded in total, including Reid who was hit with a musket ball. Reid's men fired nails, knife blades, brass buttons and other makeshift projectiles from their cannon which reportedly caused severe pain to the surviving British. After being repulsed the British slowly rowed back to their ships and it was 2:00 am on September 27 when they found them. Captain Loyd's response to the defeat was to send the Carnation back to destroy the General Armstrong after daylight but when she arrived, American fire caused further damage so Carnation broke off the attack. A little later the Carnation appeared again but Captain Reid had already chosen to scuttle his brig by firing one of his swivel guns straight through the hull. The vessel was boarded while it was sinking and the British set the sails on fire.

Reid and his crew escaped to the shore. The British wanted to land a detachment to search for the Americans but the Portuguese governor prevented them from doing this. Captain Reid and the crew of General Armstrong were credited with helping delay the British attack on New Orleans and when they returned to America they were greeted as heroes. However, later analysis showed that this was not the case.

The above historical version, and similar accounts, on the Battle of Fayal are disputed by scholars. An English eye-witness and numerous official reports from the American embassy and Portuguese records claim that the British squadron fully intended to seize the General Armstrong illegally and surreptitiously. Nor would it have made sense for the British to send fully armed launches simply to ascertain the identity of the Armstrong. This could have been easily done by contacting their own consulate or the American consulate, or simply sending a peace delegation to the ship when it was in dock.



HMS Plantagenet (1801 - 74) was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 22 October 1801 at Woolwich. She was designed by Sir William Rule as one of the 'large class' 74s, and was the only ship built to her draught. As a large 74, she carried 24-pounder guns on her upper gun deck instead of the 18-pounder guns found on the middling and common class 74s.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, stern board outline, sheer lines with scroll figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Plantagenet' (1801), 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], and Sir Evan Nepean [Admiralty Secretary].
Read more at http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/80980.html#r8R9cjJHV8604zAX.99



Career
In 1803 she and Rosario captured the French privateer sloop Atalante, of 22 guns, after a chase of nine hours. The Royal Navy took Atalante into service as Hawk.
In June 1804 Plantagenet, Captain De Courcy, escorted the China Fleet of the British East India Company from Saint Helena back to England. This was the fleet that had scared off a French squadron of warships in the Battle of Pulo Aura.
On 27 September 1810 Plantagenet and Daphne shared in the capture of the Danish schooner Toujours Fidele.
During the War of 1812, as the ship was moored near Norfolk, Virginia, attempts were made to destroy her with torpedoes built to Robert Fulton's specifications, but this came to nothing.
Plantagenet was broken up in 1817.


General Armstrong was an American brig built for privateering in the Atlantic Ocean theater of the War of 1812. She was named for Brigadier General John Armstrong, Sr. who fought in the American Revolutionary War.

War of 1812
General Armstrong had a crew of about 90 men, based in New York. 1812 under Captain Tim Barnard, From 1813 to July 1814 under the command of Guy R. Champlin and subsequently under the command of Captain Samuel Chester Reid until its scuttling in Fayal. She was armed with seven guns, including a 42-pounder Long Tom.

Queen
On 11 November 1812 General Armstrong attacked the English ship Queen, carrying 16 guns and 40 men. Queen, Conkey, master, was from Liverpool bound for Surinam, with a cargo valued at about ninety thousand pounds. Her crew made a brave resistance and did not strike her colours until their captain, the first officer, and nine of the crew had been killed. This, perhaps, was one of the most valuable prizes that was made in the war. A prize crew was placed aboard, with instructions to make for the United States, but unfortunately, when nearing the coast, Queen was wrecked off Nantucket.

Two days after General Armstrong captured Queen General Armstrong captured Lucy & Alida, Deamy, master, which was sailing from Surinam to Liverpool. However, the letter of marque Barton, of Liverpool, recaptured Lucy & Alida. Lucy & Alida was carrying a cargo dry goods. The American privateer Revenge, from Norfolk, recaptured her.

Battle of Suriname River
11 March 1813, under the command of Guy R. Champlin, General Armstrong was in the mouth of the suriname River when she encountered a vessel that she presumed to be a British privateer. This ship was, in fact, the British sloop HMS Coquette. The ensuing battle caused a lot of damage to the General Armstrong. Champlin was injured and threatened to blow up the ship if his crew surrendered. General Armstrong managed to escape.

In his log-book Champlin wrote: "In this action we had six men killed and sixteen wounded, and all the halyards of the headsails shot away; the fore-mast and bowsprit one quarter cut through, and all the fore and main shrouds but one shot away; both mainstays and running rigging cut to pieces; a great number of shot through our sails, and several between wind and water, which caused our vessel to leak. There were also a number of shot in our hull."

General Armstrong returned to the US and arrived in Charleston 4 April. The shareholders of the General Armstrong awarded Champlin a sword in recognition of his saving the General Armstrong.

Battle of Fayal
General Armstrong is most remembered for her involvement in the Battle of Fayal, under the captaincy of Samuel Chester Reid, from 26 to 27 September 1814. In the engagement, the British brig-sloop Carnation and several boats armed with cannon and carrying sailors and marines, attempted to cut out the General Armstrong. General Armstrong repulsed the attacks but Captain Reid felt he had no chance of escaping the Azores so he ordered the scuttling of General Armstrong after fighting off the Carnation for a final time on 27 September. The Americans made it to shore where the Portuguese authorities protected them. Casualties amounted to two killed and seven wounded for the United States; the British lost 36 men killed and 93 wounded. Two of their boats were sunk and two others were captured


HMS Carnation (1813) was another Cruizer-class brig-sloop, launched in 1813, and sunk as a target in 1867.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fayal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Plantagenet_(1801)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Armstrong

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1883 – SS Rotterdam (1872) , a dutch passenger ship ran aground and sunk


SS Rotterdam was a Dutch Passenger ship that ran aground and sunk on the Zeehondenbank near the Dutch island of Schouwen, while she was travelling from New York, United States to Rotterdam, The Netherlands.



Construction
Rotterdam was constructed in 1872 at the Henderson, Coulborn & Co. shipyard in Renfrew, Scotland, United Kingdom. She was completed in 1872 and launched on 6 June 1872. She was named Rotterdam after the Dutch city (of the same name) and served from 1872 until her demise in 1883.

The ship was 81.8 metres (268 ft 4 in) long, with a beam of 10.7 metres (35 ft 1 in) and had a depth of 8.7 metres (28 ft 7 in). The ship was assessed at 1,694 GRT and had 2 decks. She had a 1 x 4 cyl quadruple expansion engine driving a single screw propeller but she could also use her 10 sails for propulsion. The engine was rated at 1300 ihp.

Maiden Voyage
She commenced her maiden voyage on 15 October 1872 sailing from Rotterdam, The Netherlands via Plymouth, United Kingdom to New York, United States with on board were 10 Cabin class passengers, 60 emigrants and 600 tons of cargo was carried. The crossing was made in 14 days and 6 hours. This was also the first voyage of an own ship for the company. The ship left New York on 5 November 1872 to return to Rotterdam.

The Boston Forger Escape
Some excitement occurred on 28 January 1876 when the New York Times reported that the wellknown "Boston Forger" Mr. E.D Winslow, had escape from the United States to Holland by taking passage on the SS Rotterdam. He had his family (3 persons), a Bankers draft for 3,700 Dutch Guilders and $200,000 in Gold coins with him. He was followed in hot pursuit by two Detectives but they only traced him to the Holland America docks by the time the ship had sailed. As the USA had no extradition treaty with the Netherlands, his escape was complete.

The 1879 Incident
On 29 November 1879 the New York Herald reported that the arrival of the ship created quite a stir as she arrived minus her foremast and her steerage quarters completely wrecked. The ship had left Rotterdam on 8 November 1879 and should have arrived, with good weather, in New York on 20 November. Some ferocious weather had caused considerable damage to the ship and had resulted in a delay of 6 days as she docked on 26 November 1879. There were no reports about any casualties.



New Boilers
In the Spring of 1883 the ship is refurbished and new boilers are installed at the yard of the Nederlandsche Stoomboot Maatschappij in Rotterdam. (2,040 Brt.) this improves the fuel consumption considerably. The ship returns to service but only makes a few crossings.

Sinking
On 26 September 1883, Rotterdam was on her 65th voyage from New York, United States to Rotterdam, The Netherlands under the command of captain Samuel Jacob Krijt when she ran ashore on the Zeehondenbank near the Dutch island of Schouwen. All 56 passengers survived the incident and were all evacuated from the ship by the local life boat the Zierikzee (A local fishing vessel, adapted for this purpose) and landed safely ashore. The crew arrived shortly after having been transferred to the tugboat Nieuwesluis which had been sent out after the stranded ship had sent out a request. Later on a 2nd tugboat, the Hellevoetsluis was dispatched. However the ship was sitting so high up on the bank that very little could be done.

Then the weather turned for the worse and the abandoned ship broke into two pieces on 12 October 1883 due to the pounding waves building up over the Sandbank and eventually the hull disappeared under the sea. Any salvageable items were sold by public auction on 29 October 1883. Some remains of the wreck are still there, located in 5 meters deep water and it sometimes visited by local divers.

Wreck
The wreck lies 5 meters deep and is still very good divable and in a reasonable state. You can still find the funnel.51°41′08″N 3°36′50″E



Additional remark:
SS Rotterdam also had a sister ship named the SS Maas, that was later renamed Maasdam.
All future passenger ships would end with the traditional Dutch “dam” that became a feature of “Holland America Line” (HAL). Although the delightful Passenger-Cargo ships would usually end with “dyk.” Obviously many ships followed over the years, including Rotterdam II, III and the wonderful SS Rotterdam IV.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Rotterdam_(1872)
http://www.cruise-australia.net/HAL-Holland-America-Line.htm

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1908 - Launch of SMS Rheinland


SMS Rheinland was one of four Nassau-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Rheinland mounted twelve 28 cm (11 in) main guns in six twin turrets in an unusual hexagonal arrangement. The navy built Rheinland and her sister ships in response to the revolutionary British HMS Dreadnought, which had been launched in 1906. Rheinland was laid down in June 1907, launched the following year in October, and commissioned in April 1910.


RHEINLAND (German battleship, 1908-1921) Caption: Photographed by Arthur Renard of Kiel, soon after the ship entered service on 30 April 1910.

Rheinland's extensive service with the High Seas Fleet during World War I included several fleet advances into the North Sea, some in support of raids against the English coast conducted by the German battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group. These sorties culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in which Rheinland was heavily engaged by British destroyers in close-range night fighting.

The ship also saw duty in the Baltic Sea, as part of the support force for the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915. She returned to the Baltic as the core of an expeditionary force to aid the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, but ran aground shortly after arriving in the area. Significant portions of her armor and all her main guns had to be removed before she could be refloated. The damage done by the grounding was deemed too severe to justify repairs and Rheinland was decommissioned to be used as a barracks ship for the remainder of the war. In 1919, following the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Rheinland was ceded to the Allies who, in turn, sold the vessel to ship-breakers in the Netherlands. The ship was eventually broken up for scrap metal starting in 1920. Her bell is on display at the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden.

Description
Main article: Nassau-class battleship


Line drawing of a Nassau-class battleship showing the disposition of the main battery

The ship was 146.1 m (479 ft 4 in) long, 26.9 m (88 ft 3 in) wide, and had a draft of 8.9 m (29 ft 2 in). She displaced 18,873 t (18,575 long tons) with a normal load, and 20,535 t (20,211 long tons) fully laden. She retained coal-fired 3-shaft triple expansion engines instead of more advanced turbine engines. This type of machinery was chosen at the request of both Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and the Navy's construction department; the latter stated in 1905 that the "use of turbines in heavy warships does not recommend itself."


SMS Rheinland, c. 1910

Rheinland carried twelve 28 cm (11 in) SK L/45 guns in an unusual hexagonal configuration. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns and sixteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns, all of which were mounted in casemates. The ship was also armed with six 45 cm (18 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One tube was mounted in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside, on both ends of the torpedo bulkheads


The Nassau class were a group of four German dreadnought battleships built for the Imperial Navy. They were the German response to the introduction of the "all big gun" British HMS Dreadnought. The class was composed of Nassau, Rheinland, Posen, and Westfalen. All four ships were laid down in mid-1907, and completed between May and September 1910. Compared to their British contemporaries, the Nassau-class ships were lighter and had a wider beam. They were two knots slower, because the German ships retained vertical triple-expansion engines as opposed to the high-power turbine engines adopted by the British. The ships also carried smaller main guns—11-inch (280 mm) guns rather than the 12-inch (305 mm) guns mounted on the British ships.

After their commissioning into the German fleet, all four ships served as a unit: the II Division of I Battle Squadron. Two of the ships, Nassau and Posen, took part in the inconclusive Battle of the Gulf of Riga in 1915, during which they engaged the Russian pre-dreadnought Slava. The Nassau-class ships took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916 as the II Battle Squadron; they suffered only a handful of secondary battery hits and limited casualties. At the end of the First World War, the four ships were seized as war prizes by the victorious Allied powers and sold for scrapping.


The four Nassau class ships (bottom right) with the rest of the I Battle Squadron and the II Battle Squadron before the outbreak of war

Development
In 1906, the launch of the "all big gun" HMS Dreadnought made all other battleships then in existence obsolete. The First Naval Amendment to the 1900 German Naval Law was passed in 1906 prior to the launch of Dreadnought; Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had originally requested six new battleships and six armored cruisers, along with a number of miscellaneous smaller craft. The launch of the revolutionary Dreadnought meant that any future battleships that could compete with her would be significantly more expensive than the older pre-dreadnought battleships. Opposition to budget increases in the Reichstag forced Tirpitz to reduce his request to six armored cruisers—one of which was to have been placed in reserve—and 48 torpedo boats, dropping his request for new battleships completely; the reduced proposal was voted through on 19 May 1906. A week after the amendment was passed, funds for two 18,000-ton battleships and a 15,000-ton armored cruiser were allocated to the Navy. Funds were also provided to widen the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and enlarge dock facilities to accommodate the larger ships.

A debate ensued in the Reichsmarineamt (Naval Office) over the construction of the new ships. Tirpitz favored following the Royal Navy by building dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers as well. Tirpitz saw it as an opportunity to break Britain's commitment to the "two power standard". Tirpitz also intended to use the funds that had been allocated for armored cruisers to build battlecruisers instead, although they were still to be classified as armored cruisers.

Nassau and Westfalen were the first dreadnoughts ordered under the 1906–07 program; the armored cruiser Blücher was ordered along with them. The Second Naval Amendment to the 1900 Naval Law was passed on 27 March 1908; this amendment included a budget of 1 billion marks, and provisions that reduced the lifespan of battleships from 25 years to 20. This had the effect of necessitating the replacement of the coastal defense ships of the Siegfried and Oldenburg classes, as well as the pre-dreadnoughts of the Brandenburg class. The Sachsen-class ironclads (first put into service in the late 1870s) also needed replacement, as they were already obsolete, even under the 25-year standard. The four Sachsens were to be replaced by the Nassau class. The second pair of ships in the Nassau class, Posen and Rheinland, were ordered under the 1907–08 building program.

General characteristics
The ships were 146.1 m (479 ft 4 in) long, 26.9 m (88 ft 3 in) wide, and had a draught of 8.9 m (29 ft 2 in). The ships had a length to width ratio of 5.45, which was somewhat "stubby" compared to contemporary designs. To some extent, the greater than normal width was due to the four wing turrets, which necessitated a wider hull. They displaced 18,873 tonnes (18,575 long tons) with a standard load, and 20,535 t (20,211 long tons) fully laden. The ships had 19 watertight compartments, with the exception of Nassau, which only had 16. All four ships had a double bottom for 88 percent of the keel. The ships carried a number of boats, including a picket boat, 3 admiral's barges, 2 launches, 2 cutters, and 2 dinghies.

As designed, the ships did not handle particularly well, even in calm seas, and their motion was quite stiff. The ships experienced severe rolling, due to the weight of the wing turrets. The heavy wing turrets caused the ships to have a large metacentric height, which should have made them very stable gun platforms, but their roll period proved to coincide with that of the average North Sea swell. Bilge keels were later added, which helped to improve the rolling problem. Despite the tendency to roll, the Nassau-class ships were maneuverable and had a small turning radius. They suffered minor speed loss in heavy seas, but up to 70 percent at hard rudder. The roll keels that had been fitted to improve handling caused a portion of the speed loss at hard rudder.

Propulsion
The Imperial German Navy was slow to adopt the advanced Parsons turbine engines used in the British Dreadnought, primarily due to the resistance of both Admiral von Tirpitz and the Navy's construction department. In 1905, the latter stated that the "use of turbines in heavy warships does not recommend itself." The Nassau class therefore retained obsolete vertical triple expansion engines rated at 18,615 ihp (13,881 kW). Each of the three shafts drove a 3-bladed screw that was 5 m (5.46 yd) in diameter. Designed top speed was 19.5 knots (36.1 km/h; 22.4 mph). On trials, the ships attained 20 to 20.2 knots (37.0 to 37.4 km/h; 23.0 to 23.2 mph) on 25,885–27,732 ihp (19,302–20,680 kW). By comparison, Dreadnought's steam turbines provided a rated speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph).

Steam was provided by 12 Schulz-Thornycroft boilers, each of which had 2 fireboxes, for a total of 24. The machinery was divided into three engine and six boiler rooms. The wing turrets and their magazines further divided the machinery into three separated groups, thereby increasing survivability. The ships carried 2,700 tons of coal, and were later modified to carry an additional 160 tons of oil that was to be sprayed on the coal, to increase its burn rate. Electrical power was provided by eight turbo-generators, producing 1,280 kW at 225 V.

Armament

A line drawing of the Nassau class, showing the arrangement of the main battery

The vertical triple expansion engines consumed large amounts of internal space that could otherwise have been used for magazines. Without sufficient magazine capacity to support superfiring centerline turrets, designers were compelled to distribute six main turrets in an unusual hexagonal configuration. Two twin turrets were mounted fore and aft (one on each end), and two were mounted on each flank of the ship. Firing directly forward and aft, the ships could bring 6 guns to bear, and 8 on the broadside; this was the same theoretical capability as Dreadnought, but the Nassau-class ships required two additional guns to achieve it. It was considered that this arrangement provided a useful reserve of heavy guns that were shielded from enemy fire.

Each ship carried twelve 28 cm (11 in) SK L/45 guns. The wing turrets were Drh LC/1906 mounts, as were the centerline turrets on the first two ships of the class, Nassau and Westfalen. Posen and Rheinland carried their centerline guns in Drh LC/1907 turrets, which had a longer trunk than the LC/1906 design. The Drh LC/1906 turrets and 11-inch SK/L45 guns were designed specifically for the new German dreadnoughts in 1907. Both mountings allowed for elevation up to 20 degrees, but the LC/1907 mounts could depress an additional two degrees, down to −8. The main battery propellant magazines were placed above shell rooms, with the exception of the centerline turrets of Nassau and Westfalen. These guns fired 666 lb shells, with a 57 lb (26 kg) fore propellant charge in silk bags and a 174 lb (79 kg) main charge in a brass case. The guns fired the shells at a muzzle velocity of 2,805 ft/s (855 m/s), and had a maximum range of 22,400 yards (20,500 m). At a range of 13,100 yards (12,000 m), the 11 in shells would penetrate up to 7.9 in (200 mm) of belt armor.

Cross-section amidships showing the armor layout

The ships' secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/45 guns, which were mounted in casemates. The guns fired 99.9 lb shells at a muzzle velocity of 2,740 ft/s (835 m/s). The guns could be elevated to 19 degrees, which provided a maximum range of 16,350 yards (14950 m). The ships also carried sixteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/45 guns, also in casemates. These guns fired a 22-lb projectile at 2,133 ft/s (650 m/s), and could be trained up to 25 degrees for a maximum range of 10,500 yards (9,600 m). After 1915, two 8.8 cm guns were removed and replaced by two 8.8 cm Flak guns, and between 1916 and 1917, the remaining twelve 8.8 cm casemated guns were removed. These anti-aircraft guns fired a slightly lighter 21.2 lb shell at 2,510 ft/s (765 m/s). They could be elevated to 45 degrees and could hit targets 12,900 yards (11,800 m) away. The Nassau-class ships were also armed with six 45 cm (18 in) submerged torpedo tubes. One tube was mounted in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside, on either ends of the torpedo bulkhead.

Armor
The Nassau-class ships were equipped with Krupp cemented steel armor. The ships had an armored belt that was 30 cm (12 in) thick at its strongest, where it protected the ship's vitals in the center, and as thin as 8 cm (3.1 in) in less critical areas, such as the bow and stern. Behind the main belt was a torpedo bulkhead 3 cm (1.2 in) thick; there was some difficulty mounting the torpedo bulkhead, due to the four wing turrets and their barbettes. The ships' decks were armored, between 5.5–8 cm (2.1–3.1 in) thick. The forward conning tower had a roof that was 8 cm (3.1 in) thick, and sides 40 cm (16 in) thick. The aft conning tower was less well protected, with a 5 cm (2.0 in) thick roof and 20 cm (7.9 in) sides. The main battery turrets had roofs that were 9 cm (3.5 in) thick, and 28 cm (11 in) sides. The casemated secondary battery had 16 cm (6.3 in) worth of armor protection, and 8 cm thick gun shields. The ships were also fitted with anti-torpedo nets, but these were removed after 1916.

Construction


Nassau underway, probably before World War I

Four ships of the class were ordered, under the provisional names Ersatz Bayern, Ersatz Sachsen, Ersatz Württemberg, and Ersatz Baden, as replacements for the four old Sachsen-class ironclads. The first ship of the class, Nassau, was laid down on 22 July 1907 at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven, launched on 7 March 1908, and commissioned into the fleet on 1 October 1909. Westfalen was laid down less than a month later, on 12 August 1907 at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen. The ship was launched on 1 July 1908, and commissioned on 16 November 1909.

Rheinland, the third ship of the class, was actually the first to be laid down, on 1 June 1907 in the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin. Construction of Rheinland proceeded slower than Nassau and Westfalen, and so the ship was launched later, on 26 September 1908. Rheinland joined the fleet on 30 April 1910. Posen, the last ship of the class, was laid down at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel on 11 June 1907. The ship was not launched until 12 December 1908, and did not join her sisters until 31 May 1910.





https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_Rheinland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassau-class_battleship

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1918 - Coast Guard cutter Tampa is steaming through the Bristol Channel when she is torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine UB-91.
All those on board, 115 crew members and 16 passengers, are killed, resulting in the greatest combat-related loss of life suffered by the U.S. Naval forces during WWI.


USCGC Tampa (ex-Miami) was a Miami-Class cutter that initially served in the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, followed by service in the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Navy. Tampa was used extensively on the International Ice Patrol and also during the Gasparilla Carnival at Tampa, Florida and other regattas as a patrol vessel. It was sunk with the highest American combat casualty loss in World War I.


Miami-class cutter USCGC Tampa photographed in harbour, prior to the First World War. Completed in 1912 as the U.S. Revenue Cutter Miami, this ship was renamed Tampa in February 1916. On 26 September 1918, while operating in the English Channel, she was torpedoed and sunk by the German Submarine UB-91. All 131 persons on board Tampa were lost with her, the largest loss of life on any U.S. combat vessel during the First World War.

U.S. Revenue Cutter Service
Miami, a cutter built for the Revenue Cutter Service by the Newport Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation, was authorized 21 April 1910; launched on 10 February 1912; and placed in commission by the Revenue Cutter Service at its depot at Arundel Cove, Maryland on 19 August 1912.

During the following five years, Miami performed duties typical for cutters. She served several times on the International Ice Patrol, operating out of New York City and Halifax, Nova Scotia, to locate icebergs which might be hazardous to navigation. Her first patrol began on 13 May 1913 out of Halifax, and her last ended on 11 June 1915 when she was relieved by USRC Seneca.

On other occasions, she operated out of various stations along the eastern seaboard enforcing navigation and fishing laws. Her most frequent bases of operation during that period were Key West and Tampa, Florida; the USRC Depot at Arundel Cove, and New York City. Beginning in 1914 she participated in patrolling the Gasparilla Carnival at Tampa each year in February.

U.S. Coast Guard
On 28 January 1915, the United States Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service were merged to form the present-day United States Coast Guard.[Note 2] A year later, on 1 February 1916, USCGC Miami was renamed USCGC Tampa just before the start of the annual Gasparilla Carnival in Tampa, Florida.

U.S. Navy in World War I
On 6 April 1917, when the United States entered World War I, Tampa was transferred from Coast Guard control to Navy control for the duration of hostilities, but remained crewed by Coast Guardsmen. On the morning of 9 April, crew members from Tampa and Tallapoosa boarded the Austrian steamer Borneo in Hillsboro Bay near Tampa, seizing the ship and arrested the crew. Borneo was turned over to U.S. Customsauthorities and the crew was left in the custody of local authorities. During the next four months, she received heavier armament by trading her three six-pounders for two three-inch (76 mm), a pair of machine guns and depth charge throwers and racks. After preparations at the Boston Navy Yard, Tampa moved to the New York Navy Yard on 16 September and reported for duty to the commanding officer of USS Paducah. Ordered to duty overseas, the warship departed New York on 29 September in company with Paducah, USS Hubbard, and five French-manned, American-made submarine chasers in tow. After stops at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Ponta Delgada in the Azores, Tampa and her sailing mates reached Gibraltar on 27 October 1917.

Her war service lasted just eleven months. During that time, she was assigned ocean escort duty protecting convoys from German submarines on the route between Gibraltar and the southern coast of England. On the average, she spent more than half of her time at sea and steamed more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km) per month. Between 27 October 1917 and 31 July 1918, she escorted eighteen convoys between Gibraltar and Great Britain, losing only two ships out of all those escorted.

During the late afternoon of 26 September 1918, Tampa parted company with convoy HG-107, which she had just escorted into the Irish Sea from Gibraltar. Ordered to put into Milford Haven, Wales, she proceeded independently toward her destination. At 1930 that evening, as she transited the Bristol Channel, the warship was spotted by UB-91. According to the submarine war diary entry, the U-boat dived and maneuvered into an attack position, firing one torpedo out of the stern tube at 2015 from a range of about 550 meters. Minutes later, the torpedo hit Tampa and exploded portside amidships, throwing up a huge, luminous column of water. The cutter sank with all hands; 111 Coast Guardsmen, 4 U.S. Navy personnel, and 16 passengers consisting of 11 British Navy personnel and 5 civilians. She sunk in the Bristol Channel at roughly 50°40′N 6°19′W.

Alerted by the convoy flagship, whose radio operator reported having felt the shock of an underwater explosion at about 2045, search and rescue efforts over the succeeding three days turned up only some wreckage, clearly identified as coming from Tampa, and a single unidentified body. Three bodies were later recovered, two from a beach near Lamphey, Wales, and the other at sea by a British patrol boat. Tampa was struck from the Navy list as of the date of her sinking.

Legacy
The loss of Tampa is commemorated by the United States Coast Guard Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and in the chapel at the Brookwood American Cemetery and Memorial in Surrey, England. She is mentioned in the roll of honor in the second verse of Semper Paratus, the Coast Guard's official march. On Veterans Day, 11 November 1999, the 111 crewmen of Tampa were posthumously presented with the Purple Heart by Secretary of Transportation Rodney E. Slater in ceremonies held at Arlington National Cemetery.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Tampa_(1912)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1931 - The keel to USS Ranger (CV 4) is laid at Newport , Va. She is the first ship designed and constructed as an aircraft carrier.


USS Ranger (CV-4) was the first ship of the United States Navy to be designed and built from the keel up as an aircraft carrier. Ranger was a relatively small ship, closer in size and displacement to the first US carrier—Langley—than later ships. An island superstructure was not included in the original design, but was added after completion. Deemed too slow for use with the Pacific Fleet's carrier task forces against Japan, the ship spent most of World War II in the Atlantic Ocean where the German fleet was a weaker opposition. Ranger saw combat in that theatre and provided air support for Operation Torch. In October 1943, she fought in Operation Leader, air attacks on German shipping off Norway. The ship was sold for scrap in 1947.


The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) underway at sea during the later 1930s.

Design and development
Work began in 1925 on the design of a fourth aircraft carrier for the US Navy, as a follow-on to the small Langley, converted from a collier, and the larger Lexington and Saratoga, which were in the process of being converted from incomplete battlecruisers. The Washington Naval Treaty limited both the size of individual ships that could be built and the total tonnage of aircraft carriers that could be built. After Lexington and Saratoga, there were 69,000 tons remaining for construction of aircraft carriers, and it was decided that the new ship would displace 13,800 tons, a size that would allow five carriers to be built in the remaining available tonnage. What became Ranger was to be the first purpose-built aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. The carrier cost 15.2 million dollars.

Ranger had a narrow hull due to its size and one inch of armor on the hangar deck. Due to space limits, the carrier was equipped with geared turbines. The design was modified to include an island, increasing the ship's displacement to 14,500 tons. The smoke from the ship's six boilers was vented up six small stacks, with three on each side of the aft hangar. The stacks were hinged and were rotated to a position parallel with the hangar deck during flight operations. Ranger also incorporated a gallery deck between the flight deck and hangar deck. The hangar deck was semi-open and had large roll-up metal curtain doors which could be closed in bad weather. The carrier had three elevators. One was located on the centerline and two offset to the starboard centerline. It was originally planned to install two catapults on the hangar deck to allow the launching of observation aircraft but this plan was dropped. The carrier was able to carry 76 aircraft at the time.

Ranger was armed with six 40 mm quadruple mounts and forty-six 20 mm mounts. She also was armed with eight 5-inch (127 mm)/25 caliber guns, which were removed in June 1944. The carrier was one of the first U.S. Navy ships mounted with light automatic weapons to defend against dive-bombing attacks, and was initially armed with forty .50 cal machine guns.

Construction


Ranger launching, 25 February 1933

The U.S. Navy opened bids for the construction of the aircraft carrier on 3 September 1930. Newport Shipbuilding and Drydock Company outbid Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation and New York Shipbuilding Company for the contract. In November, Newport Shipbuilding received the contract to build her. On 10 December, the name Ranger was assigned to the planned aircraft carrier.

Ranger was laid down on 26 September 1931 by the Newport Shipbuilding & Drydock Co., Newport , Virginia, and launched on 25 February 1933,[2] sponsored by Lou Henry Hoover (the wife of the President of the United States). The ship was commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard on 4 June 1934,[4] with Captain Arthur L. Bristol in command.


Ranger (bottom), Lexington (middle), and Saratoga off Honolulu, April 8, 1936


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ranger_(CV-4)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 September 1934 – Steamship RMS Queen Mary is launched.


The RMS Queen Mary is a retired British ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line – known as Cunard-White Star Line when the vessel entered service. Built by John Brown & Company in Clydebank, Scotland, Queen Mary, along with RMS Queen Elizabeth, were built as part of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service between Southampton, Cherbourg and New York. The two ships were a British response to the express superliners built by German, Italian and French companies in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Queen Mary was the flagship of the Cunard Line from May 1936 until October 1946 when she was replaced in that role by Queen Elizabeth.


RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California

Queen Mary sailed on her maiden voyage on 27 May 1936 and captured the Blue Riband in August of that year; she lost the title to SS Normandie in 1937 and recaptured it in 1938, holding it until 1952 when she was beaten by the new SS United States. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she was converted into a troopship and ferried Allied soldiers for the duration of the war.

Following the war, Queen Mary was refitted for passenger service and along with Queen Elizabeth commenced the two-ship transatlantic passenger service for which the two ships were initially built. The two ships dominated the transatlantic passenger transportation market until the dawn of the jet age in the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, Queen Mary was ageing and, though still among the most popular transatlantic liners, was operating at a loss.


Arriving in New York Harbor, 20 June 1945, with thousands of US soldiers – there is a prominent degaussing coil running around the outer hull.

After several years of decreased profits for Cunard Line, Queen Mary was officially retired from service in 1967. She left Southampton for the last time on 31 October 1967 and sailed to the port of Long Beach, California, United States, where she remains permanently moored. Much of the machinery, including one of the two engine rooms, three of the four propellers, and all of the boilers, were removed. The ship serves as a tourist attraction featuring restaurants, a museum and a hotel. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has accepted the Queen Mary as part of the Historic Hotels of America.


Queen Mary and Queen Mary 2 meeting in Long Beach, California under the words "HAIL TO THE QUEENS" formed by skywriting


Construction and naming
With Germany launching Bremen and Europa into service, Britain did not want to be left behind in the shipbuilding race. White Star Line began construction on their 80,000-ton Oceanic in 1928, while Cunard planned a 75,000-ton unnamed ship of their own.


Overhead view of Queen Mary docked at Long Beach in 2008

Construction on the ship, then known only as "Hull Number 534", began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company shipyard at Clydebank in Scotland. Work was halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression and Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete 534. The loan was granted, with enough money to complete the unfinished ship, and also to build a running mate, with the intention to provide the weekly service to New York with just two ships.

One condition of the loan was that Cunard would merge with the White Star Line, which was Cunard's chief British rival at the time and which had already been forced by the depression to cancel construction of its Oceanic. Both lines agreed and the merger was completed on 10 May 1934. Work on Queen Mary resumed immediately and she was launched on 26 September 1934. Completion ultimately took 3 1⁄2 years and cost 3.5 million pounds sterling. Much of the ship's interior was designed and constructed by the Bromsgrove Guild. Prior to launch the River Clyde had to be specifically deepened to cope with her size, this being undertaken by the enginer D. Alan Stevenson.




The ship was named after Mary of Teck, consort of King George V. Until her launch, the name she was to be given was kept a closely guarded secret. Legend has it that Cunard intended to name the ship Victoria, in keeping with company tradition of giving its ships names ending in "ia", but when company representatives asked the king's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest queen", he said his wife, Mary of Teck, would be delighted. And so, the legend goes, the delegation had of course no other choice but to report that No. 534 would be called Queen Mary.

This story was denied by company officials, and traditionally the names of sovereigns have only been used for capital ships of the Royal Navy. Some support for the story was provided by Washington Post editor Felix Morley, who sailed as a guest of the Cunard Line on Queen Mary's 1936 maiden voyage. In his 1979 autobiography, For the Record, Morley wrote that he was placed at table with Sir Percy Bates, chairman of the Cunard Line. Bates told him the story of the naming of the ship "on condition you won't print it during my lifetime." The name Queen Mary could also have been decided upon as a compromise between Cunard and the White Star Line, as both lines had traditions of using names either ending in "ic" with White Star and "ia" with Cunard.

The name had already been given to the Clyde turbine steamer TS Queen Mary, so Cunard made an arrangement with its owners and this older ship was renamed Queen Mary II.

Queen Mary was fitted with 24 Yarrow boilers in four boiler rooms and four Parsons turbines in two engine rooms. The boilers delivered 400 pounds per square inch (28 bar) steam at 700 °F (371 °C) which provided a maximum of 212,000 shp (158,000 kW) to four propellers, each turning at 200 RPM. Queen Mary achieved 32.84 knots on her acceptance trials in early 1936.




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