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
26 February 1749 – Launch of Spanish Fénix, an 80-gun ship-of-the-line of the Spanish Navy,


Fénix was an 80-gun ship-of-the-line of the Spanish Navy, launched in 1749. In 1759, she was sent to bring the new king, Carlos III, from Naples to Barcelona. When Spain entered the American Revolutionary War in June 1779, Fénix set sail for the English Channel where she was to join a Franco-Spanish fleet of more than 60 ships-of-the-line under Lieutenant General Luis de Córdova y Córdova. The Armada of 1779 was an invasion force of 40,000 troops with orders to capture the British naval base at Portsmouth.


Ship-of-the-line Real Fénix by Rafael Berenguer y Condé, Naval Museum of Madrid

As the flagship of Admiral Juan de Lángara, the ship fought at the Battle of Cape St Vincent on 16 January 1780, where she was captured by the British Royal Navy and commissioned as the third rate HMS Gibraltar in March of that year. She spent a short while in the English Channel before joining Samuel Hood's squadron in the West Indies and taking part in the Capture of St Eustatius in February 1781 and the Battle of Fort Royal the following month. Gibraltar and five other ships were sent to stop a French invasion fleet bound for Tobago in May 1781, but found the French too powerful and had to withdraw. In November, her 18-pound guns were replaced with 24-pounders, after which, in February 1782, she sailed to the East Indies and in the following year participated in the Battle of Cuddalore.



At the start of the French Revolutionary War, Gibraltar served in the Channel Fleet, fighting at the Glorious First of June in 1794 before being sent to the Mediterranean in May 1795. In June, the ship was in an action off Hyères; then, in December 1796, she was badly damaged in a storm and had to return to England for major repairs. By June Gibraltar was back in the Mediterranean, serving in the navy's Egyptian campaign, where she remained during and beyond the Peace of Amiens, except for a short period when she was sent home for a refit.

Returning to the Channel in April 1807, Gibraltar joined the fleet under Admiral James Gambier, which fought the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809. This was her last major action; the ship was taken out of service in 1813 and converted to a powder hulk. She became a lazarette in 1824, then was broken up in November 1836 at Pembroke Dock.



Construction and armament
Fénix was a Spanish, two deck, ship-of-the-line built in Havana from mahogany.[2] Launched in 1749, her dimensions were 178 feet 10.75 inches (54.5 m) along the gun deck, 144 feet 6 inches (44.0 m) at the keel, with a beam of 52 feet 11.75 inches (16.1 m) and a depth in the hold of 22 feet 1.75 inches (6.8 m). This made her 2,184 35⁄94 tons burthen (bm).

Classed as an 80-gun third-rate, Fénix was armed with thirty 24 pounders (11 kg) on her lower gun deck, thirty-two 18 pounders (8.2 kg) on her upper gun deck, twelve 9 pounders (4.1 kg) on the quarterdeck, and six on the forecastle. Her sister ship, Rayo, was later converted to a 100-gun, three-decker. She was wrecked at Trafalgar in 1805.

Fénix was captured by the British in 1780. She was copper sheathed and fitted out for British service at Plymouth Dockyardbetween April and August 1780 at a cost of £16,068.5.3d. The Admiralty changed her armament a number of times: in November 1781 the 18-pounders on her upper deck were upgraded to 24 pounders (11 kg), and the same December two 68 pounders (31 kg) carronades were added. By 1810, the guns on her quarterdeck had been replaced with four 12 pounders (5.4 kg) guns and eight 32 pounders (15 kg) carronades, and on her forecastle with four 12 pounders (5.4 kg) guns and two 32 pounders (15 kg) carronades.[3]Although large, two deck ships were favoured in other European navies, the British preferred to build three-deck third-rates; the extra space making them better suited for flagships. After the capture of Fenix, the Admiralty began to see the advantages of a longer two-deck ship which was less prone to hog, almost as well armed as its three-decked counterparts, and relatively quick.





Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sternboard with decoration detail, sheer lines with inboard detail and figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for Gibraltar (captured 1780), a captured Spanish Third Rate, two-decker. The plan records alterations for fitting her as a British 74-gun Third Rate two-decker. Signed by John Henslow [Master Shipwright, Plymouth Dockyard, 1775-1784]. Reverse: Scale: 1:96. Plan showing the quarterdeck and forecastle, upper deck, gun deck (lower deck), and orlop deck for Gibraltar (captured 1780), a captured Spanish Third Rate, two-decker. The plan illustrates the ship as she was fitted as a British 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker.


Rayo class, both ordered 1 July 1847 at Havana

Fénix (San Alejandro) 80 (launched 26 February 1749) - Captured by Britain at the Battle of Cape Santa Maria, 16 January 1780, renamed HMS Gibraltar, BU 1836
Rayo (San Pedro Apostol) 80 (launched 28 June 1749) - Converted to a 100-gun First Rate ship in 1804; foundered after the Battle of Trafalgar, 23 October 1805



Dirección completa de la ubicación en la Real Biblioteca: http://realbiblioteca.patrimonionac.../frameset&FF=Xnavio&SORT=D&searchscope=5&2,2,
Date1804Sourcehttp://realbiblioteca.patrimonionacional.esAuthorHonorato Bouyon


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ship_Fenix_(1749)

Spanish ship Rayo (1749) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1795 – French schooner Coureuse captured


HMS Coureuse was a schooner launched in 1785 or 1788 in the United States and acquired and armed at Lorient in 1794. The British captured her in 1795 and the Royal Navy briefly used her as a dispatch vessel in the Mediterranean. The Admiralty sold her in 1799.



French service
Coureuse sailed out to Cayenne, and back to Lorient under the command of Lieutenant de Vaisseau Malvin (acting).

In February 1795 Coureuse, under the command of Enseigne de vaisseau Landais (acting), was escorting a convoy of three brigs and two luggers carrying clothes for the Army from Île-Tudy to Île de Groix when the convoy had the misfortune to encounter a squadron under Captain Sir John Borlase Warren in Pomone. Pomone captured all six vessels.[5] At the time of her capture her captors described Curieuse (name latter corrected to Coureuse) as a schooner belonging to the National Convention government and carrying eight brass guns.

The frigates Artois, Galatea and Anson, and the hired armed lugger Duke of York assisted Pomone in the capture. The British latter scuttled two of the brigs of little value that they had captured from the convoy, but took the other four vessels as prizes, with Coureuse being taken into service.


Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan with stern board outline, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth with full upper deck and aft platform for 'Coureuse' (1795), a two gun, armed schooner, as taken off at Plymouth Dockyard in June 1795. Fitted at an unknown date agreeable to the directions of Sir (William) Sidney Smith [Captain Seniority: 7 May 1783] Signed by John Marshall [Master Shipwright, Plymouth Dockyard, 1795-1802].

British service
The Royal Navy fitted Coureuse out between June and July 1795, and registered her on 22 July. She then briefly served as a dispatch vessel in the Mediterranean.

Fate
Coureuse was offered for sale at Plymouth in March 1799. She was sold on 13 April for £125 to Mr. Dodds.

HMS Coureuse (1795) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Collections - National Maritime Museum

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1815 - HMS St. Lawrence (12) taken by American privateer brig Chasseur (14), Cptn. Thomas Boyle, off Havana.


HMS St Lawrence was a 14-gun schooner of the Royal Navy. She had been built in 1808 in St. Michaels, Talbot County, Marylandfor Thomas Tennant and sold to Philadelphians in 1810. During the War of 1812 she was the American privateer Atlas. The British captured her in 1813 and renamed her St Lawrence. The American privateer Chasseur recaptured her in 1815, and then HMS Acasta re-recaptured her.


Chasseur capturing HMS St Lawrence, by Adam Weingartner

Privateer
Atlas had a home port of Philadelphia and took to sea early in the war under the command of Captain David Maffitt. She was armed with 12 short 9-pounders and one long 9-pounder, and had a crew of 104 men. In July 1812, she cleared the Capes of the Delaware, and when two days out she took the brig Tulip, Captain Monk, just out from New York. On 3 August Atlas captured Pursuit, of 450 tons, carrying 16 guns and a crew of 35 men, and Planter, of 280 tons, carrying twelve 12-pounders and a crew of 15 men. Both ships were thirty days out from Surinam, bound for London, with a cargo of coffee, cotton, cocoa, and six hundred hogsheads of sugar. Atlas, which had sailed between the two vessels and fired broadsides from both sides, had been damaged in the fighting before the two vessels struck. Still, Atlas made it safely back to Philadelphia with Pursuit. The British recaptured Planter, off the Delaware Capes.

On a cruise early in the summer of 1813, Atlas took shelter in Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina, where she found the 18-gun privateer Anaconda, out of New York City, Captain Nathaniel Shaler commanding. Here, on 12 July, a British squadron under Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn, that included HMS Highflyer, herself a former American privateer, captured the two vessels. The British took both vessels into service, Anaconda as HMS Anaconda, and Atlas as HMS St Lawrence.



British service
Her first British commander was Lieutenant David Boyd and he served on her until 1 October 1814, when he became acting commander of the sloop Alban, which was the former American privateer William Bayard.

In June 1814 St Lawrence, was part of a squadron under Captain Robert Barrie of the 74-gun third rate Dragon. The British chased Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Bay Flotilla of 18 gunboats, barges and the like up the Patuxent River. On 26 June, the Americans scuttled 16 of the remaining vessels of the flotilla, with the British capturing one.

St Lawrence shared with a number of other British warships in the capture, on 2 July 1814, of the schooner Little Tom. Then 12 days later, St Lawrence shared in the capture of the schooners William, Eliza, Union, and Emmeline.

In January 1815 Lieutenant James E. Gordon took command. On 26 February 1815, St Lawrence was bound for Mobile with dispatches when just off Havana, she encountered the privateer brig Chasseur, out of Baltimore and under the command of Captain Thomas Boyle.

Chasseur carried 14 guns and 102 men, while St Lawrence carried 14 guns and 76 men, though St Lawrence's broadside was much heavier. What would prove decisive though was small arms fire from the American vessel. The intense action lasted only about 15 minutes, during which St Lawrence suffered six men killed and 18 wounded, several of them mortally. (According to American accounts, the English had 15 killed and 25 wounded.) Chasseur had five killed and eight wounded, including Boyle. Both vessels were badly damaged. Captain Boyle made a cartel of St Lawrence and sent her and her crew into Havana as his prize.

Fate
Acasta recaptured St Lawrence in March. The British sailed St Lawrence to Bermuda where an Admiralty Court ruled that as the capture took place after the treaty of peace, in accordance with the terms of peace she was to be returned to the United States as a legitimate prize of war.

HMS St Lawrence (1813) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Battle between the Brig Chasseur and the schooner St. Lawrence, off Havanna on the 26th Feb 1815 - National Maritime Museum

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1852 - HMS Birkenhead – The troopship struck a rock near Cape Town on 26 February 1852 while ferrying troops to the 8th Xhosa War. The ship sank with the loss of 450 men.


HMS Birkenhead, also referred to as HM Troopship Birkenhead or Steam Frigate Birkenhead, was one of the first iron-hulled ships built for the Royal Navy. She was designed as a steam frigate, but was converted to a troopship before being commissioned.

She was wrecked on 26 February 1852, while transporting troops to Algoa Bay at Danger Point near Gansbaai, 87 miles (140 kilometres) from Cape Town, South Africa. There were not enough serviceable lifeboats for all the passengers, and the soldiers famously stood firm on board, thereby allowing the women and children to board the boats safely and escape the sinking.


The Birkenhead troopship. The only known picture of the ship as she actually existed. Owned by the late Mr. Barber, Chief Engineer, R.N., a survivor, and the work of a brother officer.

Only 193 of the estimated 643 people on board survived, and the soldiers' chivalry gave rise to the unofficial "women and children first" protocol when abandoning ship, while the "Birkenhead drill" of Rudyard Kipling's poem came to describe courage in face of hopeless circumstances.



Description and history
The Birkenhead was laid down at John Laird's shipyard at Birkenhead as the frigate HMS Vulcan, but renamed soon after to Birkenhead after the town where she was built. She had two 564 horsepower (421 kW) steam engines from Forrester & Co that drove a pair of 6-metre (20 ft) paddle wheels, and two masts rigged as a brig.

According to her designer, John Laird:

The designs I submitted, and which were finally approved, were of a vessel 210 feet (64 m) long (being about 20 feet (6.1 m) longer than any vessel of her class had been built), and 37 feet 6 inches (11.43 m) beam with a displacement of 1,918 long tons (1,949 t) on the load water-line of 15 feet 9 inches (4.80 m). The only change made by authorities at the Admiralty in these designs was the position of the paddle shaft, which they ordered to be moved several feet more forward; the change was unfortunate as it makes the vessel, unless due care is taken in stowing the hold, trim by the head. With this exception, I am answerable for the model, specification, displacement and general arrangement of the hull of the vessel.

The ship was divided into eight watertight compartments, while the engine room was divided by two longitudinal bulkheads into four compartments, making 12 watertight compartments in total. She had a round stern and a bow that ended in a large figurehead of Vulcan, holding a hammer in one hand, and some of "the bolts of Jove" that he had just forged in the other. Her armament was originally intended to be two 96-pounder pivot guns, one forward and the other aft, and four 68-pounder broadside guns.

Launch
The Birkenhead was launched on 30 December 1845 by the Marchioness of Westminster. Her hull then weighed 903 tons and drew 9.75 feet (2.97 m), although she was at this time missing approximately 15 tons of cabin fittings. Machinery, stores, and other fittings were expected to add an additional 1,000 or so tons, increasing her draught six more feet. She undertook her maiden voyage to Plymouth in 1846, averaging 12 knots (22 km/h) to 13 knots (24 km/h) for the journey.

She remained laid up for some time, before being put to varied use around England, Scotland and Ireland. In November 1846, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron ship SS Great Britain ran aground on the sands of Dundrum Bay, Ireland. There was doubt as to whether she could be re-floated. Brunel advised that if anyone could rescue the ship then the man to do it was the naval engineer James Bremner. He was engaged and the Great Britain was re-floated on 27 August 1847 with the assistance of HMS Birkenhead.

The Birkenhead was never commissioned as a frigate, as two factors came into play while she was still under construction, that resulted in her being converted into a troopship. Firstly, the Royal Navy's warships were switched from paddle wheels to more efficient propeller propulsion, following an experiment organised by the Admiralty in 1845 in which the benefits of the propeller over the paddle wheel were dramatically demonstrated. Secondly, the Admiralty had doubts about the effects of cannon shot against iron hulls — in a number of trials carried out at Royal Arsenal in 1845, at lower velocities shot made a jagged hole that was hard to plug. On 15 September 1847, Birkenhead ran down and sank the brig Oratio in the English Channel off The Lizard, Cornwall. The owners of the brig sued for their loss in the Admiralty Court. Birkenhead was found to be to blame as she had no look-out posted, being nineteen short in her crew.

As part of her conversion to a troopship in 1851, a forecastle and poop deck were added to the Birkenhead to increase her accommodation, and a third mast added, to change her sail plan to a barquentine. Although she never served as a warship, she was faster and more comfortable than any of the wooden sail-driven troopships of the time, making the trip from the Cape in 37 days in October 1850.

Final voyage (1852)
In January 1852, under the command of Captain Robert Salmond RN, the Birkenhead left Portsmouth conveying troops from ten different regiments, including the 74th Regiment of Foot and Queen's Royal Regiment, to the Eighth Xhosa War against the Xhosa in South Africa. On 5 January, she picked up more soldiers at Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, and conveyed some officers' wives and families.

On 23 February 1852, Birkenhead docked briefly at Simonstown, near Cape Town. Most of the women and children disembarked along with a number of sick soldiers. Nine cavalry horses, several bales of hay and 35 tons of coal were loaded for the last leg of the voyage to Algoa Bay.

She sailed from Simon's Bay at 06:00 on 25 February 1852 with between 630 and 643 men, women and children aboard, the exact number being in some doubt. In order to make the best possible speed, Captain Salmond decided to hug the South African coast, setting a course that was generally within 3 miles (4.8 km) of the shore. Using her paddle wheels, she maintained a steady speed of 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h). The sea was calm and the night was clear as she left False Bay and headed east.


"The Wreck of the Birkenhead" (c. 1892) by Thomas Hemy

Shortly before 02:00 on 26 February, while Birkenhead was travelling at a speed of 8 knots (15 km/h), the leadsman made soundings of 12 fathoms (22 m). Before he could take another sounding, she struck an uncharted rock at 34°38′42″S 19°17′9″ECoordinates:

34°38′42″S 19°17′9″E with 2 fathoms (3.7 m) of water beneath her bows and 11 fathoms (20 m) at her stern. The rock lies near Danger Point (today near Gansbaai, Western Cape). Barely submerged, it is clearly visible in rough seas, but it is not immediately apparent in calmer conditions.

Captain Salmond rushed on deck and ordered the anchor to be dropped, the quarter-boats to be lowered, and a turn astern to be given by the engines. However, as the ship backed off the rock, the sea rushed into the large hole made by the collision and the ship struck again, buckling the plates of the forward bilge and ripping open the bulkheads. Shortly, the forward compartments and the engine rooms were flooded, and over 100 soldiers were drowned in their berths.

Sinking
The surviving soldiers mustered and awaited their officers' orders. Salmond ordered Colonel Seton to send men to the chain pumps; sixty were directed to this task, sixty more were assigned to the tackles of the lifeboats, and the rest were assembled on the poop deck in order to raise the forward part of the ship. The women and children were placed in the ship's cutter, which lay alongside. Two other large boats (capacity 150 each) were manned, but one was immediately swamped and the other could not be launched due to poor maintenance and paint on the winches. This left only three smaller boats available.

The surviving officers and men assembled on deck, where Lieutenant-Colonel Seton of the 74th Foot took charge of all military personnel and stressed the necessity of maintaining order and discipline to his officers. As a survivor later recounted: "Almost everybody kept silent, indeed nothing was heard, but the kicking of the horses and the orders of Salmond, all given in a clear firm voice."


The Wreck of the Birkenhead (1901) by Charles Dixon.

Ten minutes after the first impact, the engines still turning astern, the ship struck again beneath the engine room, tearing open her bottom. She instantly broke in two just aft of the mainmast. The funnel went over the side and the forepart of the ship sank at once. The stern section, now crowded with men, floated for a few minutes before sinking.

Just before she sank, Salmond called out that "all those who can swim jump overboard, and make for the boats". Colonel Seton, however, recognising that rushing the lifeboats would risk swamping them and endangering the women and children, ordered the men to stand fast, and only three men made the attempt. The cavalry horses were freed and driven into the sea in the hope that they might be able to swim ashore.

The soldiers did not move, even as the ship broke up barely 20 minutes after striking the rock. Some of the soldiers managed to swim the 2 miles (3.2 km) to shore over the next 12 hours, often hanging on to pieces of the wreck to stay afloat, but most drowned, died of exposure, or were killed by sharks.

I remained on the wreck until she went down; the suction took me down some way, and a man got hold of my leg, but I managed to kick him off and came up and struck out for some pieces of wood that were on the water and started for land, about two miles off. I was in the water about five hours, as the shore was so rocky and the surf ran so high that a great many were lost trying to land. Nearly all those that took to the water without their clothes on were taken by sharks; hundreds of them were all round us, and I saw men taken by them close to me, but as I was dressed (having on a flannel shirt and trousers) they preferred the others. I was not in the least hurt, and am happy to say, kept my head clear; most of the officers lost their lives from losing their presence of mind and trying to take money with them, and from not throwing off their coats.
- Letter from Lieutenant J.F. Girardot, 43rd Light Infantry, to his father, 1 March 1852.

The next morning, the schooner Lioness discovered one of the cutters, and after saving the occupants of the second boat made her way to the scene of the disaster. Arriving in the afternoon, she found 40 people still clinging to the rigging. It was reported that of the approximately 643 people aboard, only 193 were saved. Captain Edward WC Wright of the 91st Argyllshire Regiment was the most senior army officer to survive; he was awarded a brevet majority for his actions during the ordeal, dated 26 February 1852.

The number of personnel aboard is in some doubt, but an estimate of 638 was published in The Times. It is generally thought that the survivors comprised 113 soldiers (all ranks), 6 Royal Marines, 54 seamen (all ranks), 7 women, 13 children and at least one male civilian, but these numbers cannot be substantiated, as muster rolls and books were lost with the ship.

Of the horses, eight made it safely to land, while the ninth had its leg broken while being pushed into the sea.

Aftermath

The Danger Point lighthouse, erected near Gansbaai after the sinking.

A number of sailors were court martialled as a result of the accident. The court was held on 8 May 1852 on board HMS Victory in Portsmouth, and attracted a great deal of interest. However, as none of the senior naval officers of the Birkenhead survived, no-one was found to be to blameworthy. Captain Edward W. C. Wright of the 91st Argyllshire Regiment told the court martial

The order and regularity that prevailed on board, from the moment the ship struck till she totally disappeared, far exceeded anything that I had thought could be effected by the best discipline; and it is the more to be wondered at seeing that most of the soldiers were but a short time in the service. Everyone did as he was directed and there was not a murmur or cry amongst them until the ship made her final plunge – all received their orders and carried them out as if they were embarking instead of going to the bottom – I never saw any embarkation conducted with so little noise or confusion.

In 1895, a lighthouse was erected at Danger Point to warn shipping of the dangerous reef. The lighthouse is about 18 metres (59 ft) tall and is visible for approximately 25 nautical miles (46 km). In 1936, a remembrance plate for the Birkenhead was affixed to its base by the Navy League of South Africa. A new Birkenhead memorial was erected nearby in March 1995. In December 2001, the plaque was moved closer to the lighthouse.

A memorial in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, bears the following inscription:

In memory of Lieut.-Colonel Alexander Seton, Ensign Alex. C. Russell, and forty-eight N.C.O.s and men of the 74th Highlanders who were drowned at the wreck of H.M.S. 'Birkenhead' on the 26th February 1852, off Point Danger, Cape of Good Hope, after all the women and children on board had been safely landed in the ship's boats.

Frederick William IV of Prussia was so impressed by the bravery and discipline of the soldiers that he ordered an account of the incident to be read at the head of every regiment in his army. Queen Victoria ordered the erection of an official Birkenhead monument at the Chelsea Royal Hospital. In 1892, Thomas M. M. Hemy painted a widely admired maritime depiction of the incident, "The wreck of the Birkenhead". Prints of this painting were distributed to the public. In 1977, the South African mint issued a "Heroes of the Birkenhead Medallion" gold coin commemorating the 125 years since the sinking, featuring Hemy's painting on one of the faces of the coin

HMS Birkenhead (1845) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1861 – Launch of French Ville de Lyon, a Ville de Nantes-class 90-gun ship of the line of the French Navy


Ville de Lyon was a Ville de Nantes-class 90-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.



Career
Ville de Lyon conducted trials in 1861 before being put in ordinary in 1862. She took part in the French intervention in Mexico, and upon her return to France, became a schoolship in Brest. She returned to Mexico in 1866 to ferry an infantry regiment back to France.

After the Paris Commune, Ville de Lyon was used as a prison hulk in Brest. Struck in 1879, she was broken up in 1894.



Launching of the 90-gun ship of the line Ville de Nantes before Napoléon III.

The Ville de Nantes class was a late type of ship of the line of the French Navy, the last to be produced before pre-Dreadnought battleships came to dominate naval warfare. Designed as fast, steam and sail ships carrying 90 guns, they were the last development of the Napoléon concept, after the Algésiras class embodied the first production batch.

Napoléon class screw ships of the line[edit]
Designed by Henri Dupuy de Lôme as "swift ships of the line", the Napoléon class was the first to be designed from the conception to be steam battleships. Originally 3rd class, later redesignated as 2nd class.

• Napoléon 90 (launched 16 May 1850 at Toulon) – Stricken 1876

Algésiras sub-class

• Algésiras 90 (launched 4 October 1855 at Toulon) – Transport 1869
• Arcole 90 (launched 20 March 1855 at Cherbourg) – Stricken 1870
• Redoutable 90 (launched 25 October 1855 at Rochefort) – Stricken 1869
• Impérial 90 (launched 15 September 1856 at Brest) – Hulked 1869
• Intrépide 90 (launched 17 September 1864 at Rochefort) – Stricken 1889

Ville de Nantes sub-class

• Ville de Nantes 90 (launched 7 August 1858 at Cherbourg) – Stricken 1872
• Ville de Bordeaux 90 (launched 21 May 1860 at Lorient) – Stricken 1879
• Ville de Lyon 90 (launched 26 February 1861 at Brest) – Stricken 1883

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Ville_de_Lyon_(1861)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoléon-class_ship_of_the_line

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1891 – Launch of HMS Royal Sovereign, the lead ship of the seven ships in her class of pre-dreadnought battleships


HMS Royal Sovereign was the lead ship of the seven ships in her class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. The ship was commissioned in 1892 and served as the flagship of the Channel Fleet for the next five years. She was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1897 and returned home in 1902, and was briefly assigned as a coast guard ship before she began a lengthy refit in 1903–1904. Royal Sovereign was reduced to reserve in 1905 and was taken out of service in 1909. The ship was sold for scrap four years later and subsequently broken up in Italy.



Design and description


Right plan and elevation of the Royal Sovereign class from Brassey's Naval Annual 1906

The design of the Royal Sovereign-class ships was derived from that of the Admiral-classironclad battleships, greatly enlarged to improve seakeeping and to provide space for a secondary armament as in the preceding Trafalgar-class ironclad battleships. The ships displaced 14,150 long tons (14,380 t) at normal load and 15,580 long tons (15,830 t) at deep load. They had a length between perpendiculars of 380 feet (115.8 m) and an overall length of 410 feet 6 inches (125.1 m), a beam of 75 feet (22.9 m), and a draught of 27 feet 6 inches (8.4 m).[2] Their crew consisted of 670 officers and ratings.

The Royal Sovereigns were powered by a pair of three-cylinder, vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft. Her Humphrys & Tennant engines[2] were designed to produce a total of 11,000 indicated horsepower (8,200 kW) and a maximum speed of 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph) using steam provided by eight cylindrical boilers with forced draught. Royal Sovereign was the first ship of the class to be completed, and was put through a lengthy set of steam trials of which only a few sets of figures have survived. She made 16.41 knots (30.39 km/h; 18.88 mph) over eight hours from 9,661 ihp (7,204 kW) using normal draught and 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) over three hours from 13,360 ihp (9,960 kW) using forced draught. Some of her boiler tubes were observed to crack and leak under the pressures involved; as a result, the Navy decided not to push the boilers of the Royal Sovereign class past 11,000 ihp to prevent similar damage. The ships carried a maximum of 1,420 long tons (1,443 t) of coal, which gave them a range of 4,720 nautical miles (8,740 km; 5,430 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

Their main armament consisted of four breech-loading (BL) 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns mounted in two twin-gun barbettes, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. Each gun was provided with 80 rounds. Their secondary armament consisted of ten quick-firing (QF) 6-inch (152 mm) guns. 200 rounds per gun were carried by the ships. Sixteen QF 6-pounder (2.2 in (57 mm)) guns of an unknown type and a dozen QF 3-pounder (1.9 in (47 mm)) Hotchkiss guns were fitted for defence against torpedo boats. The two 3-pounders in the upper fighting top were removed in 1903–1904 and all of the remaining light guns from the lower fighting tops and main deck followed in 1905–1909. The Royal Sovereign-class ships mounted seven 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo tubes, although Royal Sovereign had four of hers removed in 1903–04.

The Royal Sovereigns' armour scheme was similar to that of the Trafalgars, as the waterline belt of compound armour only protected the area between the barbettes. The 14–18-inch (356–457 mm) belt and transverse bulkheads 14–16 inches (356–406 mm) thick closed off the ends of the belt. Above the belt was a strake of 4-inch (102 mm)[2] Harvey armour closed off by 3-inch (76 mm) oblique bulkheads. The barbettes were protected by compound armour, ranging in thickness from 11 to 17 inches (279 to 432 mm) and the casemates for the 6-inch guns were protected by an equal thickness of armour. The thicknesses of the armour deck ranged from 2.5 to 3 inches (64 to 76 mm). The walls of the forward conning tower were 12–14 inches (305–356 mm) thick and the aft conning tower was protected by 3-inch plates.

Construction and career

A painting of Royal Sovereign at sea in 1892

The Royal Sovereign class was ordered as part of the Naval Defence Act 1889 that was a supplement to the normal naval estimates. Royal Sovereign, the seventh ship of her name to serve with the Royal Navy, was laid down on 30 September 1889 in a drydock because Portsmouth Dockyard lacked a slipway long enough to accommodate her. The ship was floated out of dock on 26 February 1891 and christened by Queen Victoria. She completed her sea trials in May 1892 and was commissioned on 31 May at a cost of £913,986. Royal Sovereign relieved the battleship HMS Camperdown as flagship of the Channel Squadron. From then until 13 August 1892, she served as the flagship of the "Red Fleet" in the annual manoeuvres off the coast of Ireland. She reprised her role as the flagship of the Red Fleet, from 27 July to 6 August 1893 during the manoeuvres in the Irish Sea and the Western Approaches. To reduce her rolling, she was fitted with bilge keels in 1894–95. In June 1895, Royal Sovereign and three of her sister ships were part of a British naval squadron that attended the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in Germany. During the third week of July 1896, the ship took part in annual manoeuvres in the Irish Sea and off the southwest coast of England as part of "Fleet A".

On 7 June 1897, Royal Sovereign paid off and her crew was transferred to the battleship Mars which relieved her in the Channel Squadron. The next day, she recommissioned to relieve the battleship Trafalgar in the Mediterranean Sea. Before departing for the Mediterranean, she took part in the Fleet Review for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria at Spithead on 26 June 1897, and from 7–11 July took part in annual manoeuvres off the coast of Ireland. She finally departed England for the Mediterranean in September. Upon arrival, Royal Sovereign joined the Mediterranean Fleet. On 18 January 1899, Rear-Admiral Gerard Noel, Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet, hoisted his flag aboard the ship and Captain Charles Henry Adair was appointed in command two days later. The following month the ship toured Italian waters, visiting Naples, Genoa, Palermo and Syracuse. On 14 July, she visited Fiume (modern Rijeka), Croatia, in company with four other battleships, departing five days later. On the 28th, one man was killed aboard Royal Sovereign in a gun accident and he was buried at sea that evening.


A 1913 postcard showing Royal Sovereign at sea

On 9 November 1901, off Greece, one of her six-inch guns exploded when the breech was not fully closed, killing one officer and five Royal Marines and injuring one officer (Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, 4th Bt) and 19 seamen. Captain Frederick Inglefield was appointed in command on 26 November 1901. After being relieved in the Mediterranean by the battleship London, Royal Sovereign departed Gibraltar on 9 July 1902, arriving at Portsmouth, England, on 14 July 1902. She served as flagship to Sir Charles Frederick Hotham, Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, during the fleet review held at Spithead on 16 August 1902 for the coronation of King Edward VII. Paid-off at Portsmouth on 29 August, she immediately re-commissioned under Captain George Primrose and the crew of the HMS Trafalgar, to take that ship′s place as a coast guard ship at Portsmouth. She later joined the home squadron. From 5–9 August 1903, the ship participated in manoeuvres off the coast of Portugal. From 1903 to 1904, she underwent an extensive refit at Portsmouth during which six-inch armoured casemates were added for the six-inch guns. On 9 February 1907, Royal Sovereign commissioned as a special service vessel in reserve. As such, she was incorporated into the 4th Division of the Home Fleet with other such vessels in April 1909. In September 1909, Royal Sovereign was taken out of service and she was sold for scrap to G. Clarkson & Son for £40,000 on 7 October 1913. They resold her to GB Berterello of Genoa and the ship was demolished there


The Royal Sovereign class was a group of eight pre-dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Navy in the 1890s. The ships spent their careers in the Mediterranean, Home and Channel Fleets, sometimes as flagships, although several were mobilised for service with the Flying Squadron in 1896 when tensions with the German Empire were high following the Jameson Raid in South Africa. Three ships were assigned to the International Squadron formed when Greek Christians rebelled against the Ottoman Empire′s rule in Crete in 1897–1898.

By about 1905–1907, they were considered obsolete and were reduced to reserve. The ships began to be sold off for scrapbeginning in 1911, although Empress of India was sunk as a target ship during gunnery trials in 1913. Hood was fitted with the first anti-torpedo bulges to evaluate underwater protection schemes in 1911 before being scuttled as a blockship a few months after the start of the First World War in August 1914. Only Revenge survived to see active service in the war, during which she bombarded the Belgian coastline. Renamed Redoubtable in 1915, she was hulked later that year as an accommodation ship until she was sold for scrap after the war.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Royal_Sovereign_(1891)

Royal Sovereign-class battleship - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1914 – Launch of HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.


HMHS Britannic (/brɪˈtænɪk/) was the third and final vessel of the White Star Line's Olympic class of steamships and the second to bear the name "Britannic." She was the fleet mate of both the RMS Olympic and the RMS Titanic and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner.

Britannic was launched just before the start of the First World War. She was designed to be the safest of the three ships with design changes actioned during construction due to lessons learned from the sinking of the Titanic. She was laid up at her builders, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast for many months before being put to use as a hospital ship in 1915. In 1915 and 1916 she served between the United Kingdom and the Dardanelles. On the morning of 21 November 1916 she was shaken by an explosion caused by a naval mine near the Greek island of Kea and foundered 55 minutes later, killing 30 people.

There were 1,065 people on board; the 1,035 survivors were rescued from the water and lifeboats. Britannic was the largest ship lost in the First World War. The loss of the ship was compensated by the award of SS Bismarck to the White Star Line as part of post-war reparations; she became the RMS Majestic.

The wreck was located and explored by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1975. The vessel is the largest passenger ship on the sea floor



Characteristics
The dimensions of Britannic were similar to those of her sister ships, but her dimensions were altered whilst still on the building stocks after the Titanic disaster. With a gross tonnage of 48,158, she surpassed her sisters in terms of size (volume), but that did not make her the largest passenger ship in service at that time; the German SS Vaterland held this title with a significantly higher tonnage.

The ship was propelled by a mixed system already tested on her sisters: two triple expansion steam engines powered the three-bladed outboard wing propellers while a steam turbine used steam exhausted from the two reciprocating engines to power the central four-bladed propeller. She could reach a speed of 23 knots.


His Majesty's Hospital Ship (HMHS) Britannic

Post-Titanic design changes
Following the loss of Titanic and the subsequent inquiries, several design changes were made to the remaining Olympic-class liners. With Britannic, these changes were made before launch. The changes included increasing the ship's beam to 94 feet (29 m) to allow for a double hull along the engine and boiler rooms, and raising six out of the 15 watertight bulkheads up to B Deck. Additionally, a higher rated 18,000 horsepower (13,000 kW) turbine was added instead of the previous two vessels' 16,000 horsepower (12,000 kW) ones, to make up for the increase in hull width. The central watertight compartments were enhanced, allowing the ship to stay afloat with six compartments flooded.

A more obvious external change was the fitting of large crane-like davits, each powered by an electric motor and capable of launching six lifeboats which were stored on gantries; the ship was originally designed to have eight sets of gantry davits but only five were installed before she entered war service, with the difference being made up with boats launched by manually-operated Welin-type davits as on Titanic and Olympic.

Additional lifeboats could be stored within reach of the davits on the deck house roof, and the gantry davits could reach lifeboats on the other side of the ship, providing that none of the funnels was obstructing the way. This design enabled all the lifeboats to be launched, even if the ship developed a list that would normally prevent lifeboats being launched on the side opposite to the list. Several of these davits were placed abreast of funnels, defeating that purpose.[8] The ship carried 55 lifeboats, capable of carrying at least 75 people each. Thus, 3,600 people could be carried by the lifeboats, more than the maximum number of people the ship could carry.

Conception
In 1907, J. Bruce Ismay, director general of the White Star Line, and Lord Pirrie, chairman of the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast, decided to build a trio of ocean liners of unmatched size to compete with the Cunard Line's Lusitania and Mauretania not in terms of speed but in terms of luxury and safety. The names of the three vessels were decided at a later date and they showed the intention of the designer regarding their size: Olympic, Titanic and Gigantic. The plan to build these three ships was realised by naval architects Thomas Andrews and Alexander Carlisle. Construction of the Olympic and the Titanic began in 1908 and 1909 respectively. Their sizes were so large that it was necessary to build a special portico and the largest scaffolding in the world at the time in order to shelter them. Only two ships could be built at a time. The three ships were designed to be 270 metres long and to have a gross tonnage of 48,000. Their designed speed was approximately 22 knots, well below that of the Lusitania and Mauretania, but still allowing for a transatlantic crossing of less than one week.

Rumoured name-change
Although the White Star Line and the Harland and Wolff shipyard always denied it, some sources claim that the ship was to be named Gigantic. One source is a poster of the ship with the name Gigantic at the top. Other sources are November 1911 American newspapers stating the White Star order for Gigantic being placed. According to Simon Mills, owner of the Britannic wreck, a copy of the Harland and Wolff order book held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI Ref: D2805/SHIP/1) dated October 1911 (about six months before the Titanic disaster) already shows the name Britannic.

Tom McCluskie stated that in his capacity as archive manager and historian at Harland and Wolff, he "never saw any official reference to the name 'Gigantic' being used or proposed for the third of the Olympic class vessels". Some hand-written changes were added to the order book and dated January 1912. These only dealt with the ship's moulded width, not her name. At least one set of documentation exists, in which Hingley's discuss the order for the ship's anchors; this documentation states that the name of the ship is Gigantic.

Construction


One of Britannic's funnels being transported to Harland & Wolff


Britannic under construction at Harland & Wolff, 1914

The keel for Britannic was laid on 30 November 1911 at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, on the gantry slip previously occupied by the Olympic, 13 months after the launch of that ship. The acquiring of the ship was planned to be at the beginning of 1914. Due to improvements introduced as a consequence of the Titanic disaster, Britannic was not launched until 26 February 1914, which was filmed along with the fitting of a funnel. Several speeches were given in front of the press, and a dinner was organised in honour of the launching. Fitting out began subsequently. The ship entered dry dock in September and her propellers were installed.

Reusing Olympic's space saved the shipyard time and money by not clearing out a third slip similar in size to those used for Olympic and Titanic. In August 1914, before Britannic could commence transatlantic service between New York and Southampton, the First World War began. Immediately, all shipyards with Admiralty contracts were given priority to use available raw materials. All civil contracts including the Britannic were slowed. The naval authorities requisitioned a large number of ships as armed merchant cruisers or for troop transport. The Admiralty paid the companies for the use of their ships but the risk of losing a ship in naval operations was high. The big ocean liners were not taken for naval use, because smaller ships were easier to operate. RMS Olympic returned to Belfast on 3 November 1914, while work on Britannic continued slowly




The Olympic-class ocean liners were a trio of British ocean liners built by the Harland & Wolff shipyard for the White Star Line during the early 20th century. They were Olympic (1911), Titanic (1912), and Britannic (1915). All three were designed to be the largest and most luxurious passenger ships in the world, designed to give White Star an advantage in the transatlantic passenger trade. Two were lost early in their careers: Titanic sank in 1912 on her maiden voyage, after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean, and Britannic in 1916, after hitting a mine laid by the minelayer submarine U-73 in a barrier off Kea in the Aegean Sea during World War I. Olympic, the lead vessel, had a career spanning 24 years and was retired and sold for scrapping in 1935.

Although the two younger vessels did not have successful careers, they are among the most famous ocean liners ever built. Both Olympic and Titanic briefly enjoyed the distinction of being the largest ships in the world; Olympic would be the largest British-built ship in the world for over 20 years until the launch of RMS Queen Mary in 1936. Titanic's story has been adapted into many books and films. Britannic has also inspired a film of the same name.

HMHS Britannic - Wikipedia

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Olympic-class ocean liner - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1916 - French auxiliary cruiser La Provence was taking troops from France to Salonika when U-35 sank her in the Mediterranean south of Cape Matapan. Nearly 1,000 men were lost


SS La Provence was an ocean liner and auxiliary cruiser torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea on 26 February 1916. She belonged to the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique.



When launched on 21 March 1905 in a ceremony attended by the Ministers of Public Works and Commerce along with the First Secretary of Marine of La Provence was the largest ship in the French merchant marine and largest built in France.



La Provence
La Provence was 191 metres (626.6 ft) length overall by 19.8 metres (65.0 ft) beam and, at design draft of 8.15 metres (26.7 ft), limited for the relatively shallow harbor of Havre from which the ship was to operate, displaced 19,190 metric tons or 18,870 gross tons. A proposal to power the ship with turbines was rejected and two conventional triple expansion steam engines chosen instead driving two screws with 30,000 IHP for an expected speed of 23 knots. Four steam driven dynamos supplied electric power. The ship was designed with accommodation for 397 first class, 205 second class and 900 third class passengers served by 435 crew members for a total of 1,937 persons.

The ship operated on the Havre—New York route, making one crossing in six days and four hours for an average of 21.63 knots.

Armed merchant cruiser Provence II
The ship was taken over by the French government to become the French Navy's Provence II, an armed merchant cruiser that was converted to a troopship in order to support the Gallipoli Campaign and Macedonian campaign in World War I. Provence II was transporting troops from France to Salonika when she was sunk by the German U-boat U-35 commanded by Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière south of Cape Matapan. The ship listed so quickly that many of the lifeboats could not be used. There were 742 survivors. Nearly 1,000 people were killed in the sinking.

Contemporary reports from Paris indicated nearly 4,000 persons aboard and 3,130 lives lost. Modern accounts of losses revise those numbers downward to about 1,700 troops aboard and under 1,000 lost. The wartime reports from Paris for losses in this one sinking are quite close to the total, 3,180, for three troop ships sunk in connection with the Salonika troop movements: Provence II, Gallia (October 1916) and Amiral Magon (Januari 1917).

The Sydney Morning Herald for 8 March 1916, and several other English-language papers, reported:

M. Bokanowski, a French Deputy, who is one of the survivors of the French auxiliary cruiser Provence, which was torpedoed and sunk in the Mediterranean, narrates that a battalion of the Third Colonial Infantry was aboard. There was no lamentation, and there was no panic, though the ship was sinking rapidly and the boilers exploding.
Captain Vesco, he states, remained on the bridge, calmly giving orders, and finally cried, "Adieu, mes enfants." The men clustered on the foredeck, and replied, "Vive la France." Then the Provence made a sudden plunge, and the foredeck rose perpendicularly above the water.
A British patrol and a French torpedo boat picked up the survivors after they had been 18 hours in the water. Many died or went mad before the rescue ships arrived.

SS La Provence - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
26 February 1918 - hospital ship Glenart Castle was hit and sunk by a torpedo from UC-56.
Evidence suggested the submarine crew may have shot at initial survivors of the sinking in an effort to cover up the sinking. The body of one of her junior officers, recovered from the sea near where she sank, had two gunshot wounds. His body also wore a life vest indicating he was shot while trying to abandon ship. Few survivors were reported; 162 people were killed.


HMHS Glenart Castle (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) was a steamship originally built as Galician in 1900 for the Union-Castle Line. She was renamed Glenart Castle in 1914, but was requisitioned for use as a British hospital ship during the First World War. On 26 February 1918, she was hit and sunk by a torpedo fired from the German U-boat UC-56.



Operational history
Mine damage
During the First World War, Glenart Castle suffered damaged when she struck a mine in the English Channel 8 nautical miles (15 km) northwest of the Owers Lightship on 1 March 1917. She was repaired and returned to service.



Sinking
On 26 February 1918, Glenart Castle was leaving Newport, South Wales, heading towards Brest, France. Fishermen in the Bristol Channel saw her clearly lit up as a hospital ship. John Hill — a fisherman on Swansea Castle — remembered "I saw the Hospital Ship with green lights all around her – around the saloon. She had her red side lights showing and mast-head light, and also another red light which I suppose was the Red Cross light." At 04:00, Glenart Castle was hit by a torpedo in the No. 3 hold. The blast destroyed most of the lifeboats, while the subsequent pitch of the vessel hindered attempts to launch the remaining boats. In the eight minutes the ship took to sink, only seven lifeboats were launched. Rough seas and inexperienced rowers swamped most of the boats.

Only 32 survivors were reported. A total of 162 people were killed, including the Captain — Bernard Burt, eight nurses of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, seven Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) medical officers and 47 medical orderlies. Of the hospital patients being treated on board, a total of 99 died. The matron of Glenart Castle, Miss Kate Beaufoy (1868–1918), was among those killed in the sinking. Beaufoy was a veteran of the South African War and the Gallipoli campaign. Her family kept her diary and her writings describe life on the ship.

Evidence was found suggesting that the submarine may have shot at initial survivors of the sinking in an effort to cover up the sinking of Glenart Castle. The body of a junior officer of Glenart Castle was recovered from the water close to the position of the sinking. It was marked with two gunshot wounds, one in the neck and the other in the thigh. The body also had a life vest indicating he was shot while in the water.


Memorial stone to Glenart Castle

Aftermath
After the war, the British Admiralty sought the captains of U-boats who sank hospital ships, in order to charge them with war crimes. Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Kiesewetter — the commander of UC-56 — was arrested after the war on his voyage back to Germany and interned in the Tower of London. He was released on the grounds that Britain had no right to hold a detainee during the Armistice.

Memorial
A memorial plaque was dedicated on the 84th anniversary of the sinking, 26 February 2002 near to Hartland Point, with the inscription, "In proud and grateful memory of those who gave their lives in the hospital ship Glenart Castle. Please remember, Master Lt. Cmdr. Burt, Matron Katy Beaufoy, the ships officers, crew and medical staff who died when their ship was torpedoed by UC56 in the early hours of 26th Feb 1918. The ship lies 20 miles WNW from this stone. For those in peril on the sea. R.I.P. Dedicated 26.02.2002".

The Scottish military charity Glen Art was founded in 2013 by Fiona MacDonald in honour of her great aunt nurse Mary McKinnon who died while serving on the ship. In February 2018, Glen Art held a memorial concert in Arisaig Scotland commemorating the centenary of the sinking of HMHS Glenart Castle and nurse McKinnon’s death



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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 26 February


1606 – The Janszoon voyage of 1605–06 becomes the first European expedition to sight Australia, although it is mistaken as a part of New Guinea.

Willem Janszoon made the first recorded European landing on the Australian continent in 1606, sailing from Bantam, Java, in the Duyfken. As an employee of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), Janszoon had been instructed to explore the coast of New Guinea in search of economic opportunities. He had originally arrived in Dutch East Indies from the Netherlands in 1598 and became an officer of the VOC on its establishment in 1602.



In 1606, he sailed from Bantam to the south coast of New Guinea, and continued down what he thought was a southern extension of that coast, but was in fact the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula of northern Queensland. He travelled south as far as Cape Keerweer, where he battled with the local aboriginal people and several of his men were killed. As a consequence, he was obliged to retrace his route up the coast towards Cape York and then returned to Banda.


Duyfken replica on the Swan River in 2006

Janszoon did not detect the existence of Torres Strait, which separates Australia and New Guinea. Unknown to the Dutch, the Spanish or Portuguese explorer Luis Váez de Torres, working for the Spanish Crown, sailed through the strait only four months later. However, Torres did not report seeing the coast of a major land mass to his south and is therefore presumed not to have seen Australia. Because the two separate observations of Janzoon and Torres were not matched, Dutch maps did not include the strait until after James Cook's 1770 passage through the Torres Strait, while early Spanish maps showed the coast of New Guinea correctly, but omitted Australia.

Janszoon voyage of 1605–1606 - Wikipedia

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1705 HMS Harman fireship sank off Port Royal, Jamaica.


1745 – Launch of HMS Advice, a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Southampton to the dimensions laid down in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment,

HMS Advice was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Southampton to the dimensions laid down in the 1741 proposals of the 1719 Establishment, and launched on 26 February 1745.
Advice served until she was broken up in 1756.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for rebuilding Falkland (1744), a 1741 Establishment 50-gun Fourth Rate, two-decker. The plan was later used for Portland (1744), and Harwich (1743), Colchester (1744), Chester (1744), Winchester (1744),Gloucester (1745), Maidstone (1744), Advice (1746), Norwich (1745), Ruby (1745), Salisbury (1746). The body plan and longitudinal half-breadth was later altered for Litchfield (1746) and Colchester (1746).

HMS Advice (1745) - Wikipedia

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1790 – Death of Joshua Rowley, English admiral (b. 1730)

Vice-Admiral Sir Joshua Rowley, 1st Baronet (1734–1790) was the fourth son of Admiral Sir William Rowley. Sir Joshua was from an ancient English family, originating in Staffordshire (England) and was born on 1 May 1734 in Dublin Rowley served with distinction in a number of battles throughout his career and was highly praised by his contemporaries. Unfortunately whilst his career was often active he did not have the opportunity to command any significant engagements and always followed rather than led. His achievements have therefore been eclipsed by his contemporaries such as Keppel, Hawke, Howe and Rodney. Rowley however remains one of the stalwart commanders of the wooden walls that kept Britain safe for so long.



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


1802 – Death of Esek Hopkins, American admiral (b. 1718)

Commodore Esek Hopkins (April 26, 1718 – February 26, 1802) was the only Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy during the American Revolutionary War. He was also an accomplished merchant captain and privateer.

Esek Hopkins - Wikipedia

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1812 – Launch of French Terpsichore, Pallas-class frigate

The Pallas class constituted the standard design of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy during the Napoleonic Empire period. Jacques-Noël Sané designed them in 1805, as a development of his seven-ship Hortense class of 1802, and over the next eight years the Napoléonic government ordered in total 62 frigates to be built to this new design. Of these some 54 were completed, although ten of them were begun for the French Navy in shipyards within the French-occupied Netherlands or Italy, which were then under French occupation; these latter ships were completed for the Netherlands or Austrian navies after 1813.

sistership

Clorinde

Pallas-class frigate (1808) - Wikipedia

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1813 Island of Ponza taken by HMS Thames (32), Cptn. Charles Napier, HMS Furieuse (38), Cptn. William Mounsey, and army units.

In February 1813 Mounsey supported Charles John Napier in HMS Thames in the capture of the island of Ponza. They landed troops on 26 February, after passing through fire from shore batteries. Neither vessel, nor the troops they brought with them, suffered any casualties. The capture of the harbour provided an anchorage and fresh water for Royal Navy ships patrolling the coast.

Furieuse was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy. The Royal Navy captured her in 1809 and took her into service as the fifth rate HMS Furieuse. She spent most of her British career in the Mediterranean Sea, though towards the end of the War of 1812 she served briefly on the North American station. She was laid up in 1815 and sold for breaking up in 1816.


The captured Furieuse is taken in tow, a print by Thomas Whitcombe

HMS Thames (1805) was a 32-gun fifth rate, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1816.

HMS Furieuse (1809) - Wikipedia

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Collections - National Maritime Museum

1815 - HMS Statira (38), Cptn. Spelman Swaine, a Lively-class frigate, struck an uncharted rock and sank off Cuba.

Lively-class frigate - Wikipedia

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Collections - National Maritime Museum

1859 - HMS Jaseur, an Algerine-class gunboat, wrecked

HMS Jaseur was an Algerine-class gunboat launched in 1857. She served on the North America and West Indies station for less than two years before her loss by stranding on the Bajo Nuevo Bank in the Caribbean on 26 February 1859.


Leven, sister-ship to Jaseur

Jaseur was lost on the Bajo Nuevo Bank 200 miles south-east of Jamaica on 26 February 1859 on passage from Port Royal to San Juan de Nicaragua while under the command of Lieutenant Scott. All personnel on board were saved. Her stores were recovered in April by Cuba or Zelinda, tender to HMS Imaun, the receiving ship at Jamaica.

HMS Jaseur (1857) - Wikipedia

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1891 – Launch of HMS Royal Arthur, a first class cruiser of the Edgar class, previously named Centaur, but renamed in 1890 prior to launching.

HMS Royal Arthur was a first class cruiser of the Edgar class, previously named Centaur, but renamed in 1890 prior to launching. She served on the Australia Station and briefly on the North America and West Indies Station before returning to the Home Fleet in 1906. She was paid off after the First World War.

HMS Royal Arthur (1891) - Wikipedia

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1944 - Sue Sophia Dauser, Superintendent of the Navy's Nurse Corps, is the first woman in the Navy to receive rank of captain.

Sue S. Dauser was the fifth Superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps, guiding the Nurse Corps through World War II.

Sue S. Dauser - Wikipedia

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1945 - TBMs (VC 82) from USS Anzio (CVE 57) sink two Japanese submarines: I 368, 35 miles west of Iwo Jima, and RO 43, 50 miles west-northwest of Iwo Jima.

USS Anzio (ACV/CVE/CVHE-57), was a Casablanca-class escort carrier of the United States Navy that saw service during World War II in the Pacific War. Originally classified as an auxiliary aircraft carrier ACV-57, the vessel was laid down in 1942, in Vancouver, Washington, by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company. The vessel was initially named Alikula Bay, but was renamed Coral Sea and redesignated CVE-57 in 1943. Coral Sea took part in naval operations supporting attacks on the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, New Guinea and the Marianas Islands. In September 1944, the vessel was renamed Anzio. As Anzio, the escort carrier took part in assaults on the Bonin Islands and Okinawa. Following the cessation of hostilities in 1945, Anzio was among the escort carriers used in Operation Magic Carpet, returning US soldiers to the United States. Following this service, Anzio was laid up in reserve at Norfolk, Virginia, in 1946. The escort carrier was redesignated CVHE-57 on 15 June 1955, before being sold for scrap in 1959

USS Anzio (CVE-57) - Wikipedia

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1945 - USS Finnegan (DE 307) sinks Japanese submarine I 370, 120 miles south of Iwo Jima.

USS Finnegan (DE-307) was an Evarts-class destroyer escort constructed for the United States Navy during World War II. She was sent off into the Pacific Ocean to protect convoys and other ships from Japanese submarines and fighter aircraft. She performed escort and antisubmarine operations in dangerous battle areas and returned home with three well-earned battle stars.



She was named after Chief Radio Electrician William Michael Finnegan who was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor; was launched on 22 February 1944 by Mare Island Navy Yard; sponsored by Mrs. Charles Schroeder, sister of Ensign Finnegan; and commissioned on 19 August 1944, Lieutenant Commander Hoffman, USNR, in command.

USS Finnegan - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1630 – Birth of Roche Braziliano, Dutch pirate (d. 1671)


Roche Braziliano (sometimes spelled Rock, Roch, Roc, Roque, Brazilliano, or Brasiliano) (c. 1630 – disappeared c. 1671) was a Dutchpirate born in the town of Groningen. His pirate career lasted from 1654 until his disappearance around 1671. He was first made famous in Alexandre Exquemelin's 1678 book The Buccaneers of America; Exquemelin did not know Braziliano's real name, but historians have found he was probably born as Gerrit Gerritszoon and that he and his parents moved to Dutch-controlled Brazil. He is known as "Roche Braziliano", which in English translates to "Rock the Brazilian", due to his long exile in Brazil.


An illustration of Roche Braziliano in Alexandre Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America(1678)

Pirate career
Roche Braziliano was a notoriously cruel buccaneer who operated out of Port Royal, Jamaica. He was a privateer in Bahia, Brazil, before moving to Port Royal in 1654. He led a mutiny and adopted the life of a buccaneer. On his first adventure he captured a ship of immense value and brought it back safely to Jamaica. He eventually was caught and sent to Spain, but he escaped with threats of vengeance from his followers. He soon resumed his criminal career, purchasing a new ship from fellow pirate François l'Olonnais and later sailing in company with Sir Henry Morgan and Joseph Bradley among others. Braziliano's first mate Yellows eventually became a captain in his own right, sailing with Braziliano, Morgan, and others in raids against the Spanish.



Atrocities
Drunken and debauched, Braziliano would threaten to shoot anyone who did not drink with him. He roasted alive two Spanish farmers on wooden spits after they refused to hand over their pigs. He treated his Spanish prisoners barbarously, typically cutting off their limbs or roasting them alive over a fire.


Roc the Brazilian, Capturing Boat's Crew, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes MET DP835018

Fate
After 1671, Braziliano was never seen or heard from again. Even to this date, nobody knows what became of the Dutch pirate. Whether he (and his vessel and men) were lost at sea in a brutal storm, was secretly captured, or possibly retired and lived the rest of his life in anonymity is a matter of debate.

Popular culture

• A pirate named Roc Brasiliano was portrayed by Anthony Quinn in the 1952 swashbuckler film Against All Flags.
• Roche Braziliano is one of the pirates featured in the game Sid Meier's Pirates!
• The ghost of Captain Roche is found as a boss battle in Abbey Games' Renowned Explorers: International Society.

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

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1742 – Launch of HMS Wolf, a 14-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, as the first of three Wolf class sloops constructed for action against Spanish privateers during the War of Jenkins' Ear.


HMS Wolf was a 14-gun snow-rigged sloop of the Royal Navy, launched in 1742 as the first of three Wolf class sloops constructed for action against Spanish privateers during the War of Jenkins' Ear.



Construction
Wolf was the first of three small, fast vessels built for coastal patrol and Atlantic service and designated by Admiralty as the "Wolf" class. Her design was similar to that of the preceding Drake class sloops but larger and more heavily armed. Construction was contracted to civilian shipwright Thomas West, who had overseen construction of HMS Drake a year earlier.

As designed, Wolf's dimensions were in keeping with other vessels of her class with an overall length of 87 ft 6 in (26.7 m), a beam of 25 ft 2 in (7.7 m) and measuring 243 74⁄94 tonnes burthen. She had two masts, square-rigged and supported by a trysail mast aft of the main mast. Two decks were fitted instead of one, reflecting the design of her predecessor, the 1731 HMS Wolf. Constructed with eight pairs of gunports, she was initially supplied with fourteen four-pounder cannons in addition to twelve deck-mounted half-pounder swivel guns.

Construction took seven months from the laying of the keel in July 1741 to launch in February 1742, at a building cost of £1,793 and an additional ₤1,653 for fitting out.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Wolf (1742), a 14-gun two-masted Sloop building Deptford by Mr West. The ship was snow-rigged with sixteen pairs of row-ports.

Naval career
Wolf was commissioned into the Navy at Deptford Dockyard in early February 1742 and launched at the end of that month under the command of Lieutenant Samuel Loftin. Internal fitout continued until April, after which Wolf was sailed to Svalbard as convoy protection for the English whaling fleet.

Privateer hunter
At the end of the whaling season Wolf returned south to join the blockade of Spanish ports established as part of the War of Jenkins' Ear. On 11 December 1742 Wolf overhauled and captured a Spanish privateer, Nuestra Señora del Pilar y Animas. Two more privateers were captured in March 1743; the San Pedro y Animas on 5 March, and the Nuestra Señora de la Esclavitud on the 17th.

Lieutenant Loftin left the vessel in late 1743 and was replaced by Commander Richard Haddock in January of the following year. Wolf's success in privateer hunting continued, with the capture of Spanish ships La Notre Dame de Boulogne on 30 June 1744, and La Palme on 30 July. In September Haddock was replaced by Commander (later Admiral) Augustus Keppel, who had recently returned to England after taking part in George Anson's voyage around the world. Keppel vacated his command three months later in favour of Lieutenant Thomas Stanhope, under whose authority Wolf was removed from Spanish patrol and reassigned to the English Channel.

Capture and recapture
Stanhope was replaced in July 1745 by Commander John Hughes, with Wolf remaining at her previous post in the English Channel. On 29 October 1745 she was on patrol off the Channel Islands when she encountered and was defeated by a 32-gun French privateer. Commander Hughes and two other English sailors were killed in the battle, and three more were wounded. The outgunned Wolf was then surrendered to the French, who converted her for privateering and renamed her La Loup.

Wolf's French service was cut short four months later, when on 1 March 1746 she was run down and retaken by the Royal Navy frigates Amazon and Grand Turk. The battered sloop was returned to Plymouth as a prize. After a year in port she was repurchased by Admiralty on 6 March 1747 and transferred to Plymouth Dockyard for repair. A five month refit was completed at a total cost of ₤1,887, slightly more than her original construction cost in 1742.

Relaunch and wreck
The rebuilt Wolf was commissioned in July 1747 under Commander George Vachel, and relaunched in August for service against the French in what was now the War of the Austrian Succession. The following year was spent on patrol duties in the North Sea and off the Irish coast. On 31 December 1748 Wolf was caught in heavy seas and driven towards the Irish shore. Despite efforts by her crew she was wrecked in the bay below Dundrum Castle and sank with the loss of all on board.

HMS Wolf (1742) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1780 - storeship HMS Leviathan, ex HMS Northumberland, foundered while returning home from Jamaica.


HMS Northumberland was a 70-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Plymouth Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment, and launched on 1 December 1750.



During the Seven Years' War Northumberland was the flagship of Lord Alexander Collville from 1753 to 1762, and under the captaincy of William Adams until 1760 and Nathaniel Bateman from 1760 to 1762. Future explorer James Cook served as ship's master from 1759 to 1761.

Northumberland was later classified as a storeship and was renamed HMS Leviathan on 13 September 1777. She foundered on 27 February 1780 whilst sailing from Jamaica to Britain.


Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth proposed (and approved) for a 70-gun Second Rate, two-decker, as prepared by the Master Shipwrights of Chatham Dockyard, Deptford Dockyard, Portsmouth Dockyard, Woolwich Dockyard, and Sheerness Dockyard, and approved by Sir John Norris and other flag officers. Later used for 'Grafton' (1750), 'Somerset' (1748), 'Northumberland' (1750), 'Orford' (1749), 'Swiftsure' (1750), 'Vanguard' (1748), and 'Buckingham' (1751), all 70-gun (later 68-gun) Third Rate, two-deckers.

HMS Northumberland (1750) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1804 – Launch of HMS Eagle, a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy,


HMS Eagle was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 February 1804 at Northfleet.



On 11 November 1804, Glatton, together with Eagle, Majestic, Princess of Orange, Raisonable, Africiane, Inspector, Beaver, and the hired armed vessels Swift and Agnes, shared in the capture of the Upstalsboom, H.L. De Haase, Master.

In 1830 she was reduced to a 50-gun ship, and became a training ship in 1860. She was renamed HMS Eaglet in 1919, when she was the Royal Naval Reserve training centre for North West England. A fire destroyed Eagle in 1926


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Sceptre' (1802), 'Repulse' (1803) and 'Eagle' (1804), and with modifications for 'Belleisle' (1819), 'Malabar' (1818) and 'Talavera' (1818), all 74-gun, Third Rate, two-deckers. Signed by John Henslow [Surveyor of the Navy, 1784-1806] and William Rule [Surveyor of the Navy, 1793 to 1813].


The Repulse-class ships of the line were a class of eleven 74-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy by Sir William Rule. The first three ships to this design were ordered in 1800, with a second batch of five following in 1805. The final three ships of the class were ordered towards the end of the Napoleonic War to a modified version of Rule's draught, using the new constructional system created by Sir Robert Seppings; all three were completed after the war's end.

Repulse class (Rule) – Talavera structurally different

• Repulse 74 (1803) – broken up 1820
• Eagle 74 (1804) – cut down as 50-gun frigate 1831, hulked at Falmouth for the Coastguard 1857, training ship in Southampton Water 1860, to Liverpool 1862, Mersey Division RNVR 1910, renamed Eaglet 1918, burnt 1926, wreck sold for breaking 1927
• Sceptre 74 (1802) – broken up 1821
• Magnificent 74 (1806) – hulked as receiving ship Jamaica 1823, sold 1843
• Valiant 74 (1807) – broken up 1823
• Elizabeth 74 (1807) – broken up 1820
• Cumberland 74 (1807) – hulked as convict ship and coal deport Chatham, renamed Fortitude 1833, to Sheerness as coal deport by 1856, sold 1870
• Venerable 74 (1808) – hulked as church ship Portsmouth, broken up 1838
• Talavera 74 (1818) – timbered according to Seppings' principle using smaller timbers than usual. Accidentally burnt at Plymouth Oct 1840, then broken up
• Belleisle 74 (1819) – troopship 1841, hulked as hospital ship Sheerness 1854, lent to the seaman's hospital at Greenwich 1866–68, broken up 1872
• Malabar 74 (1818) – hulked as coal deport Portsmouth 1848, renamed Myrtle 1883, sold 1905

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Eagle_(1804)

Repulse-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1806 - HMS Hydra (38), Cptn. George Mundy, captured French national brig Le Furet (18), Lt. Demay, off Cadiz

A scene showing the action on 27 February 1806, between the British 38-gun frigate Hydra and the French brig, Furet. Following their defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805, four French frigates and the 'Furet' escaped to Cadiz where they remained until February 1806. To entice them out, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood withdrew his heavy ships out to sea leaving only the frigate Hydra and the sloop Moselle, 18 guns, in close blockade. On 23 February a strong easterly wind drove them off station and the French commander, Captain La Marre La Meillerie took the opportunity to sail. The Frenchmen were sighted by the Hydra and Moselle the same evening and Captain George Mundy of the Hydra dispatched the Moselle to warn the Commander-in-Chief, while he gave chase. At about 4.30 p.m. on 27 February he overtook the Furet which struck to him. In the right foreground is the Hydra, in port-bow view, sailing close-hauled on the starboard tack. In the left middle distance is the Furet, also port-bow view, firing a gun at the Hydra while her main top-gallant mast is falling. George Chambers senior (1803-40), painted another version of this action for Mundy in 1832, with a pair to it of Hydra at Cape Bagur in 1807 (see also BHC0577). The Chambers pictures were subsequently lithographed by Paul Gauci but that of the Furet action (NMM PAG7115) does not relate to this interpretation of it. This painting is apparently the pair to BHC0577, being acquired with it for the Museum by Sir James Caird in 1928 as part of the Macpherson Collection.

One of a pair with PAF4765 showing 'Hydra' action at Bagur, Catalonia, in 1807. Both are from a pair of oil paintings by Chambers, done in 1832 for Admiral George Mundy, formerly commander of the 38-gun 'Hydra' in both incidents. See Alan Russett, 'George Chambers 1803-40' (Woodbridge, 1996) esp. pp. 71-73. PvdM 10/03

Furet was an Abeille-class 16-gun brig of the French Navy, launched in 1801. HMS Hydra captured her on 27 February 1806, off Cadiz.


1/36th scale model of Cygne, sister-ship of Furet, on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.



Career
Around 23 June 1802, Furet, under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Demay, sailed on a secret mission from Toulon to Mahon, and return.

Furet, with Demay still in command, sailed with Admiral Villeneuve's fleet from Toulon on 29 March 1805 to Martinique. She returned to Europe with the fleet and then participated in both the battles of Finisterre and Trafalgar.

Capture
After Trafalgar, Furet found herself blockaded in Cadiz.

Captain Julien Cosmao decided to sortie from Cadiz on 23 October, in an attempt to retake some of the vessels the British had captured at Trafalgar. He put to sea in company with five ships of-the-line, three French, the 80-gun Indomptable and Neptune, and the 74-gun Pluton, and two Spanish, the 100-gun Rayo and the 74-gun San Francisco de Asis. Some smaller French ships that had been present at the battle but had not taken part accompanied the ships of the line: the frigates Cornélie, Thémis, Hortense, Rhin, and Hermione, and the brigs Furet and Argus. In preparation for the counter-attack the British cast off several of the prizes and formed a defensive line, allowing the frigates to retake two of the captured prizes, both Spanish ships, the 112-gun Santa Ana and the 80-gun Neptuno. Of the two recaptured ships, only the Santa Ana made it back to Cadiz, when the sortieing ships ran into difficulties in the heavy storm that blew up after the battle. Neptuno ran aground and was destroyed, while a similar fate befell both Indomptable, after she grounded off Rota, and San Francisco de Asis, in Cadiz Bay. Rayo attempted to anchor off San Lucar and ride out the storm, but rolled out her masts in the heavy seas. HMS Donegal came up, and being unable to resist, Rayo surrendered to her, but was driven on shore on 26 October and wrecked. Neptune had to be towed back into Cadiz.

The survivors, including Furet took refuge at Cadiz, where they remained into February 1806. To try to lure them out, Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood pulled his ships-of-the-line ten leagues out to sea, leaving only the frigate Hydra, under Captain George Mundy, and the brig-sloop Moselle in close blockade. On 23 February a strong easterly wind drove the British off their station, which led the French commander, Captain Lameillerie, to seize the opportunity to escape.

On the evening of 26 February Hydra and Moselle were three leagues west of the Cadiz lighthouse when they sighted the French squadron, comprising the 40-gun frigates Cornélie, Rhin, Hortense and Hermione, and Furet. Mundy began firing rockets and alarm guns to alert Collingwood, while sailing parallel to the French squadron. Mundy then sent Carden in Moselle to try to locate the British fleet. On the morning of 27 February Moselle reached Collingwood, who despatched three frigates to try to catch the French. In the meantime, Hydra had managed to isolate Furet from her companions, and after a two-hour chase, captured her. The French frigates did not come to their brig's aid, and after firing a pro forma broadside, Furet surrendered. Furet was armed with eighteen 9-pounder guns, and had a crew of 130 men under the command of lieutenant de vaisseau Demay. She was provisioned for a cruise of five months. Under the rules of prize-money, Moselle shared in the proceeds of the capture of Furet.

During the next six months, Lamellerie's frigate squadron cruised the Atlantic, visiting Senegal, Cayenne and the West Indies, but failed significantly to disrupt British trade.


The Abeille class was a type of 16-gun brig-corvette of the French Navy, designed by François Pestel with some units refined by Pierre-Jacques-Nicolas Rolland. They were armed with either 24-pounder carronades, or a mixture of light 6-pounder long guns and lighter carronades. 21 ships of this type were built between 1801 and 1812, and served in the Napoleonic Wars.

The four first ships were ordered in bulk on 24 December 1800, but two (Mouche, Serin) could not be completed due to shortages of timbers. As the forerunner of the series, Abeille, is not always identified as such in British sources, the type is sometimes referred to as the Sylphe class, after Sylphe, which served as model for subsequent constructions.

Excerpt from the monographie by Jean Boudriot

MONOGRAPHIE DU CYGNE - Brick -1806 - Ancre

24-PDR BRIG LE CYGNE BY ENGINEER PESTEL 1806 -1808 MONOGRAPH NEW : IN STOCK IN ENGLISH

ancre.fr

HMS Hydra launched in 1797 was a fifth-rate frigate of the Royal Navy, armed with a main battery of twenty-eight 18-pounder guns.

She was built to the design of the captured French frigate Melpomene (taken in 1794).


Capture of the Fort & Vessels in the Spanish Harbour of Begu,(Catalonia) by H.M.Ship Hydra, Capt G Munday Aught 7th 1807.





Lines (ZAZ2441)


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_brig_Furet_(1801)

Abeille-class brig - Wikipedia

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HMS Hydra (1797) - Wikipedia

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Collections - National Maritime Museum

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1809 – Action of 27 February 1809:
Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine


The Action of 27 February 1809 was a minor naval engagement during the French Revolutionary Wars. Two 44-gun frigates, Pénélope and Pauline, sortied from Toulon harbour to chase a British frigate, HMS Proserpine, which was conduction surveillance of French movements. First sneaking undetected and later trying to pass herself as a British frigate coming to relieve Proserpine, Pénélope approached within gun range before being identified. With the help of Pauline, she subdued Proserpine and forced her to surrender after a one-hour fight.


Capture of HMS Proserpine by Pénélope and Pauline. Watercolour by Antoine Roux.

Proserpine was sailed to Toulon and commissioned in the French Navy, where she served until 1865. Captain Otter remained a prisonner in France until the end of the war; he was court martialed for the loss of his ship on 30 May 1814, and honourably acquitted.

Background
By 1809, the French fleet in Toulon was blockaded by several British squadrons of powerful ships of the line; direct surveillance of the harbour, however, had to be conducted by smaller and more agile frigates. Threatening intervention from the battle squadrons against ships putting out to sea, the presence of the British frigates constricted the liberty of manoeuver of the French ships, preventing not only an all-out sortie, but also navigation of individual ships or small squadrons, and even the training manoeuvers necessary to maintain the fleet. Consequently, French commanders tried to drive off British ships in order to disrupt the surveillance.

In February, the 32-gun frigate HMS Proserpine, under Captain Charles Otter, was patrolling off Toulon. Having noticed that she tended to sail very close to Toulon, up to Cape Sicié, and learning from fishermen who had been in contact with her crew that she would be relieved at her station around the 27th, Captain Dubourdieu requested from Admiral Ganteaume the authorization to give chase; although under order to avoid engaging the British squadrons, Ganteaume authorised the sortie, joining Pauline, under François-Gilles Montfort, to Dubourdieu's Pénélope. He furthermore ordered two 74-guns, Suffren and Ajax, under Rear-admiral Baudin, to cover the frigates.

Battle
Pénélope and Pauline sneaked out of Toulon around 19:00, under a light East-North-East wind. Approaching unseen on the background of the coast, they reached Proserpine around 4, as she was cruising 12 miles off Cape Sicié. Suddenly detecting two large ships nearby, Proserpine, almost becalmed, tried to evade and identify her opponents to no avail. Seeing Proserpine challenge him with codes, Dubourdieu ordered the same number of signals to be raised and quickly lowered, as to confuse the British into wondering whether he was another British frigate coming to relieve her and having merely made a mistake in his answer. Pénélope arrived on the starboard side of Proserpine, " looking very large, her ports all up, lights on the main-deck fore and aft: she had shortened sail, and was perfectly ready for commencing the action", while Pauline took position on the port side.

Captain Otter hailed the frigates, who answered by firing a single shot. The ships began trading broadsides, Pénélope gaining an initial advantage by raking her opponent with a triple-shot broadside. After one hour, Proserpine had her rigging and hull seriously damaged, and was in danger of being boarded. Her Mizzen-mast was cut three metres above the deck, and she had also lost her main top spar.

Seeing his ship unable to flee and two 74-gun ships approaching, Otter consulted with his officers and struck his colours, surrendering at 5:15.

Aftermath


Proserpine represented after her captured (the mizzen was actually more seriously damaged). Watercolour by Antoine Roux.

The incident did not alter the balance of power in the region. Pénélope towed Proserpine to Toulon where the French Navy commissioned under her existing name. She took part in the Invasion of Algiers in 1830 and remained in service until 1865, when she was hulked and used as a prison.

Otter remained a prisoner in France until the end of the war; he was court martialed for the loss of his ship on 30 May 1814, and honourably acquitted, the court determining that he had defended his ship in the "most gallant and determined manner, and that her colours were not struck until resistance was of no avail".

Dubourdieu was promoted to Officer of the Legion of Honour.


Proserpine was a 44-gun Amphion-class frigate of the French Navy. The British Navy captured her off Toulon about a year after her commissioning and took her into service as HMS Proserpine. She served in various capacities such as a frigate, troopship, hospital ship, and prison hulk until 1865.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_27_February_1809
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Proserpine_(1809)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Pénélope_(1806)

French frigate Pauline (1807) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1812 – Launch of HMS Gloucester, a 74-gun, third rate Vengeur-class ship of the line built for the Royal Navy


HMS Gloucester was a 74-gun, third rate Vengeur-class ship of the line built for the Royal Navy in the 1810s. She played a minor role in the Napoleonic Wars and was cut down into a 50-gun fourth rate frigate in 1831–32. The ship was converted into a receiving ship and broken up in 1884.



Description
Gloucester had a length at the gundeck of 176 feet 3.5 inches (53.7 m) and 145 feet 2 inches (44.2 m) at the keel. She had a beamof 47 feet 10.5 inches (14.6 m), a draught of 17 feet 5.5 inches (5.3 m) at deep load, and a depth of hold of 21 feet (6.4 m). The ship's tonnage was 17706⁄94 tons burthen. Gloucester was armed with twenty-eight 32-pounder cannon on her main gundeck, twenty-eight 18-pounder cannon on her upper gundeck, four 12-pounder cannon and ten 32-pounder carronades the quarterdeck, two more pairs of 12-pounder guns and 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle, and six 18-pounder carronades on the poop deck. The ship had a crew of 590 officers and ratings.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile with some external detail for Gloucester (1812), a 74-gun Third Rate, two-decker, as cut down and fitted as a 50-gun Fourth Rate Frigate at Chatham Dockyard. Note her circular stern, which she was completed with after her Large Repair between 1818-1822. Signed by William Stone [Master Shipwright, Chatham Dockyard, 1830-1839].

Construction and career
Gloucester, named after the eponymous port, was the sixth ship of her name to serve in the Royal Navy. She was ordered on 11 June 1808 from Thomas Pitcher and was laid down at his Northfleet dockyard in March 1808, launched on 27 February 1812 and was towed to Sheerness where the ship was completed on 11 June. Gloucester cost £62,519 to build and an additional £25,343 to outfit. The ship was commissioned in April 1813 under the command of Captain Robert Williams for duty in the North Sea and then the Baltic Sea.

She was reduced to a 50-gun ship in 1831–32, and was sold for scrap in May 1884.




The Vengeur-class ships of the line were a class of forty 74-gun third rates, designed for the Royal Navy as a joint effort between the Surveyors of the Navy at the time. The Vengeur Class, sometimes referred to as the Surveyors' class of third rates, amongst other names, was the most numerous class of ships of the line ever built for the Royal Navy - forty ships being completed to this design. Due to some dubious practices, primarily in the commercial dockyards used for construction, this class of ships earned itself the nickname of 'Forty Thieves.'

Between 1826 and 1832, ten of these ships were cut down by one deck (raséed) to produce 50-gun "frigates". These were the Barham, Dublin, Alfred, Cornwall, America, Conquestador, Rodney (renamed Greenwich), Vindictive, Eagle and Gloucester. Planned similar conversions of the Clarence (renamed Centurion) and Cressy around this time were cancelled, but the Warspitewas additionally converted along the same lines in 1837-1840.

Around 1845 four of these ships were converted into 'blockships', the then-current term for floating batteries, equipped with a steam/screw propulsion system and re-armed with 60 guns. In this guise some of them saw action during the Crimean War. The four were the Blenheim, Ajax, La Hogue and Edinburgh. About ten years later, a further batch of five ships was similarly converted - this included the Russell, Cornwallis and Pembroke of this class (as well as the Hawke and Hastings of other designs).

HMS Gloucester (1812) - Wikipedia

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Vengeur-class ship of the line - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1855 – Launch of HMS Victor Emmanuel, a screw-propelled 91-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, originally launched as HMS Repulse, but renamed shortly after being launched.


HMS Victor Emmanuel was a screw-propelled 91-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, originally launched as HMS Repulse, but renamed shortly after being launched.



Construction and commissioning
Victor Emmanuel was an Agamemnon-class ship of the line, a class originally designed as 80-gun sailing two-deckers. They were re-ordered as screw ships in 1849, and Victor Emmanuel was duly reclassified as a 91-gun ship on 26 March 1852. She was built and launched on 27 February 1855 under the name HMS Repulse, but was renamed Victor Emmanuel on 7 December 1855, in honour of Victor Emmanuel after he visited the ship. She cost a total of £158,086, with £87,597 spent on her hull, and a further £35,588 spent on her machinery.


The ship-rigged steam battleship 'Agamemnon' was the first warship to be built with screw propulsion, though other sailing vessels had been fitted with engines after commissioning. 'Agamemnon's' success was such that she remained the basic model for the first decade of Britain's steam battlefleet. During the Crimean War she took part in the bombardment of Sebastopol on 17 October 1854 and the shelling of Fort Kinburn, at the mouth of the Dnieper, one year later. In 1857 the government fitted out 'Agamemnon' to carry 1,250 tons of telegraphic cable for the Atlantic Telegraph Company's first attempt to lay a transatlantic telegraph cable. Although this was unsuccessful, the following year the project was resumed. 'Agamemnon' and her American counterpart USS 'Niagara' spliced their cable ends in midatlantic on 29 July 1858 and then sailed for their respective continents. On 16 August Queen Victoria sent a ninety-nine-word message to President Buchanan, a process that took more than sixteen hours. Three weeks later the cable failed and service was interrupted for several years until the 'Great Eastern' successfully laid a new cable. After service on the Caribbean and North American stations, 'Agamemnon' was paid off in 1862 and sold in 1870. Hand-coloured lithograph.

Career
She served in the English Channel, the Mediterranean, and off the African coast during the Anglo-Ashanti wars. She was assigned to Hong Kong to replace HMS Princess Charlotte and used as a hospital and receiving ship there from 1873. She was sold in 1899


Agamemnon class 2-decker, 91 guns

• Agamemnon 91 (1852) – sold 1870

James Watt class 2-deckers, 91 guns

• James Watt 91 (1853) – sold 1875
• Victor Emanuel 91 (1855) – ex-Repulse. sold 1899
• Edgar 91 (1858)
• Hero 91 (1858) – sold 1871

Scale: 1:48. A half block model of HMS Agamemnon (1852), a 80 gun two-decker 2nd rate warship. The model is made in wood with some metal fittings and constructed in bread and butter fashion. The hull has been hollowed out internally and is painted a copper colour below the waterline with the upperworks and bulwarks painted black and divided by a thin white line. The gun decks are highlighted by a pair of thick, horizontal bands painted creamy-white and the gunports, complete with guns and portlids, are painted black. The model is complete with a rounded stern and quarter gallery, a rudder fitted to the sternframe, a set of drift rails and a cathead. The figurehead is missing. The hull is also fitted with three sets of channels, complete with chain plates and deadeyes, most of which are painted black. The decks have been finished just below the level of the bulwarks and painted a light brown-cream colour. There are three stump masts and a bowsprit of the same colour, together with a funnel mounted on deck. The model is mounted on a wooden backboard painted creamy-white with a mahogany stained edging. Plaque inscribed '217 AGAMEMNON - 80 guns - 1852. Built at Woolwich. The first battleship designed as screw ship. Took part in laying of the first Atlantic cable 1857-8. Sold in 1870. Dimensions: - Length 230ft 6in. Speed 11 knots.'. The model has been recently restored with the additions and repairs finished in a natural wood colour.

HMS Victor Emmanuel (1855) - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1861 – Launch of HMS Black Prince, the third ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy.
She was the world's second ocean-going, iron-hulled, armoured warship, following her sister ship, HMS Warrior.


HMS Black Prince was the third ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy. She was the world's second ocean-going, iron-hulled, armoured warship, following her sister ship, HMS Warrior. For a brief period the two Warrior-class ironclads were the most powerful warships in the world, being virtually impregnable to the naval guns of the time. Rapid advances in naval technology left Black Prince and her sister obsolete within a short time, however, and she spent more time in reserve and training roles than in first-line service.

Black Prince spent her active career with the Channel Fleet and was hulked in 1896, becoming a harbour training ship in Queenstown, Ireland. She was renamed Emerald in 1903 and then Impregnable III in 1910 when she was assigned to the training establishment in Plymouth. The ship was sold for scrap in 1923.



Design and description
HMS Black Prince was 380 feet 2 inches (115.9 m) long between perpendiculars and 420 feet (128.0 m) long overall. She had a beam of 58 feet 4 inches (17.8 m) and a draught of 26 feet 10 inches (8.2 m). The ship displaced 9,137 long tons (9,284 t). The hull was subdivided by watertight transverse bulkheads into 92 compartments and had a double bottom underneath the engine and boiler rooms.


Black Prince, Nov 1861 (Drawing) (PAF8144)

Propulsion
The Warrior-class ships had one 2-cylinder trunk steam engine made by John Penn and Sons driving a single 24-foot-6-inch (7.5 m) propeller. Ten rectangular boilers[4] provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of 20 psi (138 kPa; 1 kgf/cm2). The engine produced a total of 5,772 indicated horsepower (4,304 kW) during Black Prince's sea trials in September 1862 and the ship had a maximum speed of 13.6 knots (25.2 km/h; 15.7 mph) under steam alone. The ship carried 800 long tons (810 t) of coal, enough to steam 2,100 nautical miles (3,900 km; 2,400 mi) at 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph).

The ironclads were ship rigged and had a sail area of 48,400 square feet (4,497 m2). Black Prince could only do 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) under sail, 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) slower than her sister Warrior.

Armament
The armament of the Warrior-class ships was intended to be 40 smoothbore, muzzle-loading 68-pounder guns, 19 on each side on the main deck and one each fore and aft as chase guns on the upper deck. This was modified during construction to ten rifled 110-pounder breech-loading guns, twenty-six 68-pounders, and four rifled breech-loading 40-pounder guns.

The 7.9-inch (201 mm) solid shot of the 68-pounder gun weighed approximately 68 pounds (30.8 kg) while the gun itself weighed 10,640 pounds (4,826.2 kg). The gun had a muzzle velocity of 1,579 ft/s (481 m/s) and had a range of 3,200 yards (2,900 m) at an elevation of 12°. The 7-inch (178 mm) shell of the 110-pounder Armstrong breech-loader weighed 107–110 pounds (48.5–49.9 kg). It had a muzzle velocity of 1,150 ft/s (350 m/s) and, at an elevation of 11.25°, a maximum range of 4,000 yards (3,700 m). The shell of the 40-pounder breech-loading gun was 4.75 inches (121 mm) in diameter and weighed 40 pounds (18.1 kg). The gun had a maximum range of 3,800 yards (3,500 m) at a muzzle velocity of 1,150 ft/s (350 m/s). In 1863–64 the 40-pounder guns were replaced by a heavier version with the same ballistics. All of the guns could fire both solid shot and explosive shells.

Black Prince was rearmed during her 1867–68 refit with twenty-four 7-inch and four 8-inch (203 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns. The ship also received four 20-pounder breech-loading guns for use as saluting guns. The shell of the 15-calibre 8-inch gun weighed 175 pounds (79.4 kg) while the gun itself weighed 9 long tons (9.1 t). It had a muzzle velocity of 1,410 ft/s (430 m/s) and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 9.6 inches (244 mm) of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The 16-calibre 7-inch gun weighed 6.5 long tons (6.6 t) and fired a 112-pound (50.8 kg) shell. It was credited with the nominal ability to penetrate 7.7-inch (196 mm) armour.


Scale 1:192. A plan showing the sail arrangement of the 'Warrior' class broadside ironclad 'Warrior' (1860) and 'Black Prince' (1861). As originally drafted, the plan shows the sail arrangement as completed, but undated annotations in pencil show a reduction of the bowsprit and the addition of new sails to the fore and main masts. These alterations were carried out as part of the 1863 refit. This plan is marked 'Cancelled' in red ink on the reverse indicating its replacement by a later version.

Armour
The sides of Black Prince were protected by an armour belt of wrought iron, 4.5 inches (114 mm) thick, that covered the middle 213 feet (64.9 m) of the ship. The ends of the ship were left entirely unprotected which meant that the steering gear was very vulnerable. The armour extended 16 feet (4.9 m) above the waterline and 6 feet (1.8 m) below it. 4.5-inch transverse bulkheads protected the guns on the main deck. The armour was backed by 16 inches (406 mm) of teak.

Construction and service


Black Prince with masts manned by sailors

Black Prince was ordered on 6 October 1859 from Robert Napier and Sons in Govan, Glasgow for the price of £377,954. The ship was laid down on 12 October 1859 and launched 27 February 1861. Her completion was delayed by a drydock accident at Greenock while fitting out, which damaged her masts. She steamed to Spithead in November 1861 with only jury-rigged fore and mizzenmasts. The ship was commissioned in June 1862, but was not completed until 12 September 1862. Black Prince was assigned to the Channel Fleet until 1866, then spent a year as flagship on the Irish coast. Overhauled and rearmed in 1867–68, she became guardship on the River Clyde. The routine of that duty was interrupted in 1869 when she and Warrior towed a large floating drydock from Madeira to Bermuda.

Black Prince was again refitted in 1874–75, gaining a poop deck, and rejoined the Channel Fleet as flagship of Rear Admiral Sir John Dalrymple-Hay, second-in-command of the fleet. In 1878 Captain H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh took command and the ship crossed the Atlantic to participate in the installation of a new Governor General of Canada. Upon her return Black Prince was placed in reserve at Devonport, and, reclassified as an armoured cruiser, she was reactivated periodically to take part in annual fleet exercises. Black Prince was hulked in 1896 as a harbour training ship, stationed at Queenstown, and was renamed Emerald in 1903. In 1910 the ship was moved to Plymouth and renamed Impregnable III when she was assigned to the training school HMS Impregnable before she was sold for scrap on 21 February 1923.


HMS Warrior, Britain's first ironclad warship

The Warrior-class ironclads were a class of two warships built for the Royal Navy between 1859 and 1862, the first ocean-going ironclads with iron hulls ever constructed. The ships were designed as armoured frigates in response to an invasion scare sparked by the launch of the French ironclad Gloire and her three sisters in 1858. They were initially armed with a mix of rifled breech-loading and muzzle-loading smoothbore guns, but the Armstrong breech-loading guns proved unreliable and were ultimately withdrawn from service.

The ships spent their first commission with the Channel Fleet before being rearmed with new rifled muzzle-loading guns in the late 1860s. Warrior rejoined the Channel Fleet after her refit while Black Prince joined the 1st Class Reserve and joined the fleet during its annual manoeuvres. The two ships exchanged roles after another refit in the mid-1870s. Both ships spent most of the last two decades of the 19th century in reserve. Warrior was hulked in 1902 and survived to be restored in 1979 as a museum ship. Black Prince became a training ship in 1896 and was hulked in 1910 before being sold for scrap in 1923.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Black_Prince_(1861)

Warrior-class ironclad - Wikipedia

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
27 February 1869 – Launch of HMS Audacious, the lead ship of the Audacious-class ironclads built for the Royal Navy


HMS Audacious was the lead ship of the Audacious-class ironclads built for the Royal Navy in the late 1860s. They were designed as second-class ironclads suitable for use on foreign stations and the ship spent the bulk of her career on the China Station. She was decommissioned in 1894 and hulked in 1902 for use as a training ship. The ship was towed to Scapa Flow after the beginning of the First World War to be used as a receiving ship and then to Rosyth after the war ended. Audacious was sold for scrap in 1929.



Design and description


Right elevation, plan and cross-section of the Audacious-class ironclads

The Audacious-class ironclads were laid out as central battery ironclads with the armament concentrated amidships. They were the first British ironclads to have a two-deck battery with the upper deck guns sponsoned out over the sides of the hull. The ships were fitted with a short, plough-shaped ram and their crew numbered 450 officers and men.

HMS Audacious was 280 feet (85.3 m) long between perpendiculars. She had a beam of 54 feet (16.5 m) and a draught of 23 feet (7.0 m). The ship was first British ironclad to be completed below her designed displacement; this meant that she was top heavy and required 360 long tons (370 t) of cement ballast to raise her metacentric height. Audacious, and her sisters, were the steadiest gun platforms among the large British ironclads of their era. Audacious was given an experimental zinc sheath for her hull in an attempt to reduce biofouling that proved unsuccessful.

Propulsion
Audacious had two 2-cylinder horizontal return connecting rod steam engines made by Ravenhill, each driving a single 16-foot-2-inch (4.9 m) propeller. The bronze four-bladed Mangin propellers were not arranged in the usual radial cross shape, but rather in two pairs, one behind the other, on an elongated boss in an attempt to reduce their drag when the ship used her sails. They were later replaced by two-bladed Griffiths propellers. Six rectangular boilers provided steam to the engine at a working pressure of 31 psi (214 kPa; 2 kgf/cm2). The engines produced a total of 4,021 indicated horsepower (2,998 kW) during sea trials on 21 October 1870 and Audacious reached a maximum speed of 12.83 knots (23.76 km/h; 14.76 mph). The ship carried 460 long tons (470 t) of coal,[5] enough to steam 1,260 nautical miles (2,330 km; 1,450 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

The Audacious-class ironclads were initially ship rigged and had a sail area of 25,054 square feet (2,328 m2). After the loss of HMS Captain in a storm in 1870, the ships were modified with a barque rig which reduced their sail area to 23,700 square feet (2,202 m2). They were slow under sail, only 6.5 knots (12.0 km/h; 7.5 mph),[8] partly due to the drag of the twin screws, and their shallow draft and flat bottom meant that they were leewardly when close-hauled. The three ships, Audacious, Vanguard, and Invincible, with balanced rudders were described as unmanageable under sail alone.



Armament
HMS Audacious was armed with ten 9-inch and four 64-pounder rifled muzzle-loading guns. Six of the 9-inch (229 mm) guns were mounted on the main deck, three on each side, while the other four guns were fitted above them on the upper deck. Their gun ports were in each corner of the upper battery and could be worked in all weathers, unlike like the guns on the main deck below them. The 64-pounder guns were mounted on the upper deck, outside the battery, as chase guns. The ship also had six 20-pounder Armstrong guns for use as saluting guns.

The shell of the 14-calibre 9-inch gun weighed 254 pounds (115.2 kg) while the gun itself weighed 12 long tons (12 t). It had a muzzle velocity of 1,420 ft/s (430 m/s) and was credited with the ability to penetrate a nominal 11.3 inches (287 mm) of wrought iron armour at the muzzle. The 16-calibre 64-pounder gun weighed 3.2 long tons (3.3 t) and fired a 6.3-inch (160 mm), 64-pound (29.0 kg) shell that had a muzzle velocity of 1,125 ft/s (343 m/s).

In 1878 Audacious received four 14-inch (356 mm) torpedo launchers that were carried on the main deck, outside the armoured battery. When the ship was refitted in 1889–90 she received eight 4-inch breech-loading guns as well as four quick-firing 6-pounder Hotchkiss and six 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns for defence against torpedo boats.

Armour
Audacious had a complete waterline belt of wrought iron that was 8 inches (203 mm) thick amidships and tapered to 6 inches (152 mm) thick at the bow and stern. It only protected the main deck and reached 3 feet (1 m) above the waterline at full load and 5 feet (1.5 m) below. The guns were protected by a section of 8-inch armour, 59 feet (18.0 m) long, with a 5-inch (127 mm) transverse bulkhead forward and a 8-inch (203 mm) bulkhead to the rear. The armour was backed by 8–10 inches (200–250 mm) of teak. The total weight of her armour was 924 long tons (939 t).

sistership


Service
HMS Audacious was ordered on 29 April 1867 from Robert Napier in Govan, Glasgow. She was laid down on 26 June 1867 and launched on 27 February 1869 in a gale. The winds caught the rear of the ship as she was about halfway down the slipway and twisted her enough that some plates and frames of her bottom were damaged. The ship was completed on 10 September 1870 and commissioned the following month.[14] She cost £256,291 to build.

Upon completion she became guard ship of the First Reserve at Kingstown, Ireland (modern Dún Laoghaire), but was transferred the following year to Hull where she remained until 1874. The ship was ordered to the Far East that year to serve as the flagship for the China Station under the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Alfred Phillips Ryder. Despite the presence of escorting tugs, Audacious grounded twice while she was transiting through the Suez Canal. She relieved her sister Iron Duke in Singapore, and later collided with a merchant ship during a typhoon in Yokohama. Iron Duke relieved her in turn in 1878. Audacious returned to her previous post in Hull in 1879, relieving HMS Endymion. She served there until she began a lengthy refit which included new boilers and the addition of a poop deck.


In use as a mail depot ship at Scapa Flow

The ship's refit was complete in March 1883 and she again relieved Iron Duke as flagship of the China Station later that year. Audaciousremained there until 1889 when she returned to Chatham where she was refitted, rearmed and replaced her masts and rigging with simple pole masts fitted with fighting tops. Upon the completion of her refit in 1890 she returned to Hull for the third time until the ship was decommissionedin 1894. Audacious was relegated to 4th class reserve until her engines were removed and she was converted to an unpropelled depot ship in 1902. She was commissioned at Chatham on 16 July 1902 by Captain Henry Loftus Tottenham as torpedo depot ship at that port. She then acted as depot ship for destroyers at Felixstowe until 1905, when she paid off; in April 1904 she had been renamed Fisgard (after the French translation of the Welsh town Fishguard). In 1906, she was recomissioned as part of the four-ship Fisgard boy artificers training establishment at Portsmouth. The ship was towed to Scapa Flow in 1914 after the start of the First World War to be used as a receiving ship and was renamed Imperieuse. On 13 January 1915, the auxiliary minesweeper HMS Roedean was driven onto Imperieuse in Scapa Flow off Hoy, Orkney Islands; Rodean sank due to damage she suffered in the collision. In 1919, Imperieuse was to be renamed Victorious, but the renaming was cancelled. She was towed from Scapa to Rosyth on 31 March 1920, where she remained as store ship until 15 March 1927, when she was sold to Thos W Ward of Inverkeithing for scrap




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Audacious_(1869)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacious-class_ironclad