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

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay - Part II


Voyage


Lady Penrhyn

The First Fleet left Portsmouth, England on 13 May 1787. The journey began with fine weather, and thus the convicts were allowed on deck. The Fleet was accompanied by the armed frigate Hyena until it left English waters. On 20 May 1787, one convict on the Scarborough reported a planned mutiny; those allegedly involved were flogged and two were transferred to Prince of Wales. In general, however, most accounts of the voyage agree that the convicts were well behaved. On 3 June 1787, the fleet anchored at Santa Cruz at Tenerife. Here, fresh water, vegetables and meat were brought on board. Phillip and the chief officers were entertained by the local governor, while one convict tried unsuccessfully to escape. On 10 June they set sail to cross the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, taking advantage of favourable trade winds and ocean currents.

The weather became increasingly hot and humid as the Fleet sailed through the tropics. Vermin, such as rats, and parasites such as bedbugs, lice, cockroaches and fleas, tormented the convicts, officers and marines. Bilges became foul and the smell, especially below the closed hatches, was over-powering. While Phillip gave orders that the bilge-water was to be pumped out daily and the bilges cleaned, these orders were not followed on the Alexander and a number of convicts fell sick and died. Tropical rainstorms meant that the convicts could not exercise on deck as they had no change of clothes and no method of drying wet clothing. Consequently, they were kept below in the foul, cramped holds. On the female transports, promiscuity between the convicts, the crew and marines was rampant, despite punishments for some of the men involved. In the doldrums, Phillip was forced to ration the water to three pints a day.

The Fleet reached Rio de Janeiro on 5 August and stayed for a month. The ships were cleaned and water taken on board, repairs were made, and Phillip ordered large quantities of food. The women convicts' clothing had become infested with lice and was burnt. As additional clothing for the female convicts had not arrived before the Fleet left England, the women were issued with new clothes made from rice sacks. While the convicts remained below deck, the officers explored the city and were entertained by its inhabitants. A convict and a marine were punished for passing forged quarter-dollars made from old buckles and pewter spoons.


An English Fleet in Table Bay in 1787

The Fleet left Rio de Janeiro on 4 September to run before the westerlies to the Table Bay in southern Africa, which it reached on 13 October. This was the last port of call, so the main task was to stock up on plants, seeds and livestock for their arrival in Australia. The livestock taken on board from Cape Town destined for the new colony included two bulls, seven cows, one stallion, three mares, 44 sheep, 32 pigs, four goats and "a very large quantity of poultry of every kind". Women convicts on the Friendship were moved to other transports to make room for livestock purchased there. The convicts were provided with fresh beef and mutton, bread and vegetables, to build up their strength for the journey and maintain their health. The Dutch colony of Cape Town was the last outpost of European settlement which the fleet members would see for years, perhaps for the rest of their lives. "Before them stretched the awesome, lonely void of the Indian and Southern Oceans, and beyond that lay nothing they could imagine."

Assisted by the gales in the "Roaring Forties" latitudes below the 40th parallel, the heavily laden transports surged through the violent seas. In the last two months of the voyage, the Fleet faced challenging conditions, spending some days becalmed and on others covering significant distances; the Friendship travelled 166 miles one day, while a seaman was blown from the Prince of Wales at night and drowned. Water was rationed as supplies ran low, and the supply of other goods including wine ran out altogether on some vessels. Van Diemen's Land was sighted from the Friendship on 4 January 1788. A freak storm struck as they began to head north around the island, damaging the sails and masts of some of the ships.

On 25 November, Phillip had transferred to the Supply. With Alexander, Friendship and Scarborough, the fastest ships in the Fleet, which were carrying most of the male convicts, the Supply hastened ahead to prepare for the arrival of the rest. Phillip intended to select a suitable location, find good water, clear the ground, and perhaps even have some huts and other structures built before the others arrived. This was a planned move, discussed by the Home Office and the Admiralty prior to the Fleet's departure. However, this "flying squadron" reached Botany Bay only hours before the rest of the Fleet, so no preparatory work was possible. Supply reached Botany Bay on 18 January 1788; the three fastest transports in the advance group arrived on 19 January; slower ships, including Sirius, arrived on 20 January.

This was one of the world's greatest sea voyages – eleven vessels carrying about 1,487 people and stores had travelled for 252 days for more than 15,000 miles (24,000 km) without losing a ship. Forty-eight people died on the journey, a death rate of just over three per cent.

Arrival in Australia


The First Fleet arrives in Port Jackson, 27 January 1788, by William Bradley

It was soon realised that Botany Bay did not live up to the glowing account that the explorer Captain James Cook had provided. The bay was open and unprotected, the water was too shallow to allow the ships to anchor close to the shore, fresh water was scarce, and the soil was poor, First contact was made with the local indigenous people, the Eora, who seemed curious but suspicious of the newcomers. The area was studded with enormously strong trees. When the convicts tried to cut them down, their tools broke and the tree trunks had to be blasted out of the ground with gunpowder. The primitive huts built for the officers and officials quickly collapsed in rainstorms. The marines had a habit of getting drunk and not guarding the convicts properly, whilst their commander, Major Robert Ross, drove Phillip to despair with his arrogant and lazy attitude. Crucially, Phillip worried that his fledgling colony was exposed to attack from Aborigines or foreign powers. Although his initial instructions were to establish the colony at Botany Bay, he was authorised to establish the colony elsewhere if necessary.


An engraving of the First Fleet in Botany Bay at voyage's end in 1788, from The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay. Sirius is in the foreground; convict transports such as Prince of Wales are depicted to the left.

On 21 January, Phillip and a party which included John Hunter, departed the Bay in three small boats to explore other bays to the north. Phillip discovered that Port Jackson, about 12 kilometres to the north, was an excellent site for a colony with sheltered anchorages, fresh water and fertile soil. Cook had seen and named the harbour, but had not entered it. Phillip's impressions of the harbour were recorded in a letter he sent to England later: "the finest harbour in the world, in which a thousand sail of the line may ride in the most perfect security ...". The party returned to Botany Bay on 23 January.

On the morning of 24 January, the party was startled when two French ships were seen just outside Botany Bay. This was a scientific expedition led by Jean-François de La Pérouse. The French had expected to find a thriving colony where they could repair ships and restock supplies, not a newly arrived fleet of convicts considerably more poorly provisioned than themselves. There was some cordial contact between the French and British officers, but Phillip and La Pérouse never met. The French ships remained until 10 March before setting sail on their return voyage. They were not seen again and were later discovered to have been shipwrecked off the coast of Vanikoro in the present-day Solomon Islands.

On 26 January 1788, the Fleet weighed anchor and sailed to Port Jackson. The site selected for the anchorage had deep water close to the shore, was sheltered, and had a small stream flowing into it. Phillip named it Sydney Cove, after Lord Sydney the British Home Secretary. This date is celebrated as Australia Day, marking the beginning of British settlement. The British flag was planted and formal possession taken. This was done by Phillip and some officers and marines from the Supply, with the remainder of Supply's crew and the convicts observing from on board ship. The remaining ships of the Fleet did not arrive at Sydney Cove until later that day.

First contact
The First Fleet encountered indigenous Australians when they landed at Botany Bay. The Cadigal people of the Botany Bay area witnessed the Fleet arrive and six days later the two ships of French explorer La Pérouse sailed into the bay. When the Fleet moved to Sydney Cove seeking better conditions for establishing the colony, they encountered the Eora people, including the Bidjigal clan. A number of the First Fleet journals record encounters with Aboriginal people.

Although the official policy of the British Government was to establish friendly relations with Aboriginal people, and Arthur Phillip ordered that the Aboriginal people should be well treated, it was not long before conflict began. The colonists did not sign treaties with the original inhabitants of the land. Between 1790 and 1810, Pemulwuy of the Bidjigal clan led the local people in a series of attacks against the British colonisers.

After January 1788
The ships of the First Fleet mostly did not remain in the colony. Some returned to England, while others left for other ports. Some remained at the service of the Governor of the colony for some months: some of these were sent to Norfolk Island where a second penal colony was established.

1788

• 15 February – HMS Supply sails for Norfolk Island carrying a small party to establish a settlement.
• 5/6 May – Charlotte, Lady Penrhyn and Scarborough set sail for China.
• 14 July – Borrowdale, Alexander, Friendship and Prince of Wales set sail to return to England.
• 2 October – Golden Grove sets sail for Norfolk Island with a party of convicts, returning to Port Jackson 10 November, while HMS Sirius sails for Cape of Good Hope for supplies.
• 19 November – Fishburn and Golden Grove set sail for England. This means that only HMS Supply now remains in Sydney cove.

1789

• 23 December – HMS Guardian carrying stores for the colony strikes an iceberg and is forced back to the Cape. It never reaches the colony in New South Wales.

1790:

• 19 March – HMS Sirius is wrecked off Norfolk Island.
• 17 April – HMS Supply sent to Batavia, Java, for emergency food supplies.
• 3 June – Lady Juliana, the first of six vessels of the Second Fleet, arrives in Sydney cove. The remaining five vessels of the Second Fleet arrive in the ensuing weeks.
• 19 September – HMS Supply returns to Sydney having chartered the Dutch vessel Waaksamheid to accompany it carrying stores.

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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay - Part III


Last survivors
On 26 January 1842, the Colonial Government in Sydney awarded a life pension of 1 shilling a day to three surviving members of the First Fleet. The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiserreported, on Saturday 29 January 1842: "The Government have ordered a pension of one shilling per diem to be paid to the survivors of those who came by the first vessel into the Colony. The number of these really 'old hands' is now reduced to three, of whom, two are now in the Benevolent Asylum, and the other is a fine hale old fellow, who can do a day's work with more spirit than many of the young fellows lately arrived in the Colony." The names of the three recipients are not given.

William Hubbard: Hubbard was convicted in the Kingston Assizes in Surrey, England, on 24 March 1784 for theft. He was transported to Australia on the Scarborough in the First Fleet. He married Mary Goulding on 19 December 1790 in Rose Hill. In 1803 he received a land grant of 70 acres at Mulgrave Place. He died on 18 May 1843 at the Sydney Benevolent Asylum. His age was given as 76 when he was buried at Christ Church St. Lawrence, Sydney on 22 May 1843.

John McCarthy: McCarthy was a Marine who sailed on the Friendship. McCarthy was born in Killarney, County Kerry, Ireland, circa Christmas 1745. He first served in the colony of New South Wales, then at Norfolk Island where he took up a land grant of 60 acres (Lot 110). He married the first fleet convict Ann Beardsley on Norfolk Island in November 1791 after his discharge a month earlier. In 1808, on the close of Norfolk Island settlement, he resettled in Van Diemen's Land and later took a land grant (80 acres at Melville) in lieu of the one forfeited on Norfolk Island. The last few years of his life were spent at the home of his granddaughter and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Budd, at a place called Kinlochewe Inn near Donnybrook, Victoria. McCarthy died on 24 July 1846, six months past his 100 birthday.

John Limeburner: The South Australian Register reported, in an article dated Wednesday 3 November 1847: "John Limeburner, the oldest colonist in Sydney, died in September last, at the advanced age of 104 years. He helped to pitch the first tent in Sydney, and remembered the first display of the British flag there, which was hoisted on a swamp oak-tree, then growing on a spot now occupied as the Water-Police Court. He was the last of those called the 'first-fleeters' (arrivals by the first convict ships) and, notwithstanding his great age, retained his faculties to the last." John Limeburner was a convict on the Charlotte. He was convicted on 9 July 1785 at New Sarum, Wiltshire of theft of a waistcoat, a shirt and stockings. He married Elizabeth Ireland in 1790 at Rosehill and together they establish a 50-acre farm at Prospect. He died at Ashfield in September 1847 and is buried at St John's, Ashfield.

John Jones: Jones was a Marine on the First Fleet and sailed on the Alexander. He is listed in the N.S.W. 1828 Census as aged 82 and living at the Sydney Benevolent Asylum. He is said to have died at the Benevolent Asylum in 1848.

Samuel King: King was a scribbler (a worker in a scribbling mill) before he became a Marine. He was a Marine with the First Fleet on board the flagship Sirius (1786). He shipped to Norfolk Island on Golden Grove in September 1788, where he lived with Mary Rolt, a convict who arrived with the First Fleet on the Prince of Wales. He received a grant of 60 acres (Lot No. 13) at Cascade Stream in 1791. Mary Rolt returned to England on the Britannia in October 1796. King was resettled in Van Diemen's Land, boarding the City of Edinburgh on 3 September 1808, and landed in Hobart on 3 October. He married Elizabeth Thackery on 28 January 1810. He died on 21 October 1849 at 86 years of age and was buried in the Wesleyan cemetery at Lawitta Road, Back River.

John Small: Convicted 14 March 1785 at the Devon Lent Assizes held at Exeter for Robbery King's Highway. Sentenced to hang, reprieved to 7 years transportation. Arrived on the Charlotte in First Fleet 1788. Certificate of freedom 1792. Land Grant 1794, 30 acre "Small's Farm" at Eastern Farms (Ryde). Married October 1788 Mary Parker also a First Fleet convict who arrived on Lady Penrhyn. John Small died on 2 October 1850 at age of 90 years.

Elizabeth Thackery: Elizabeth "Betty" King (née Thackery) was tried and convicted of theft on 4 May 1786 at Manchester Quarter Sessions, and sentenced to seven years transportation. She sailed on the Friendship, but was transferred to the Charlotte at the Cape of Good Hope. She was shipped to Norfolk Island on the Sirius (1786) in 1790 and lived there with James Dodding. In August 1800 she bought 10 acres of land from Samuel King at Cascade Stream. Elizabeth and James were relocated to Van Diemen's Land in December 1807 but parted company sometime afterwards. On 28 January 1810 Elizabeth married "First Fleeter" Private Samuel King (above) and lived with him until his death in 1849. Betty King died in New Norfolk, Tasmania on 7 August 1856, aged 89 years. She is buried in the churchyard of the Methodist Chapel, Lawitta Road, Back River, next to her husband, and the marked grave bears a First Fleet plaque. She was one of the first British women to land in Australia and was the last "First Fleeter" to die.

Legacy
Smallpox
Main articles: Controversy over smallpox in Australia and History of smallpox in Australia
Historians have disagreed over whether those aboard the First Fleet were responsible for introducing smallpox to Australia's indigenous population, and if so, whether this was the consequence of deliberate action.

In 1914, J. H. L. Cumpston, director of the Australian Quarantine Service put forward the hypothesis that smallpox arrived with British settlers. Some researchers have argued that any such release may have been a deliberate attempt to decimate the indigenous population.Hypothetical scenarios for such an action might have included: an act of revenge by an aggrieved individual, a response to attacks by indigenous people, or part of an orchestrated assault by the New South Wales Marine Corps, intended to clear the path for colonial expansion. Seth Carus, a former Deputy Director of the National Defense University in the United States wrote in 2015 that there was a "strong circumstantial case supporting the theory that someone deliberately introduced smallpox in the Aboriginal population."


Other historians have disputed the idea that there was a deliberate release of smallpox virus and/or suggest that it arrived with visitors to Australia other than the First Fleet. It has been suggested that live smallpox virus may have been introduced accidentally when Aboriginal people came into contact with variolous matter brought by the First Fleet for use in anti-smallpox inoculations.

In 2002, historian Judy Campbell offered a further theory, that smallpox had arrived in Australia through contact with fishermen from Makassar in Indonesia, where smallpox was endemic. In 2011, Macknight stated: “The overwhelming probability must be that it [smallpox] was introduced, like the later epidemics, by [Indonesian] trepangers ... and spread across the continent to arrive in Sydney quite independently of the new settlement there.”

There is a fourth theory, that the 1789 epidemic was not smallpox but chickenpox – to which indigenous Australians also had no inherited resistance – that happened to be affecting, or was carried by, members of the First Fleet. This theory has also been disputed.

Commemoration Garden


The First Fleet Memorial Garden, Wallabadah, New South Wales

After Ray Collins, a stonemason, completed years of research into the First Fleet, he sought approval from about nine councils to construct a commemorative garden in recognition of these immigrants. Liverpool Plains Shire Council was ultimately the only council to accept his offer to supply the materials and construct the garden free of charge. The site chosen was a disused caravan park on the banks of Quirindi Creek at Wallabadah, New South Wales. In September 2002 Collins commenced work on the project. Additional support was later provided by Neil McGarry in the form of some signs and the council contributed $28,000 for pathways and fencing. Collins hand-chiseled the names of all those who came to Australia on the eleven ships in 1788 on stone tablets along the garden pathways. The stories of those who arrived on the ships, their life, and first encounters with the Australian country are presented throughout the garden. On 26 January 2005, the First Fleet Garden was opened as the major memorial to the First Fleet immigrants. Previously the only other specific memorial to the First Fleeters was an obelisk at Brighton-Le-Sands, New South Wales. The surrounding area has a barbecue, tables, and amenities.


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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1788 – The first elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from Great Britain to Australia arrive at Botany Bay - Part IV - The Ships - Naval Escorts HMS Sirius and HMS Supply


HMS Sirius was the flagship of the First Fleet, which set out from Portsmouth, England, in 1787 to establish the first European colony in New South Wales, Australia. In 1790, the ship was wrecked on the reef, south east of Kingston Pier, in Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island.


Two ships are shown in the yard, one in a wet dock and the other on a launching slipway. Small yards, such as this, were privately owned, and produced and repaired coastal craft and merchant ships. Some received contracts to build brigs and sloops for the navy, allowing the naval dockyards to concentrate on the construction of larger ships. Francis Holman (who died in November 1784) was an important 18th-century marine artist working in London. He often depicted scenes of the working river, like this view, which is probably somewhere along the Rotherhithe waterfront. The ship partly included on the far left, called 'Adamant', has been deliberately named and probably indicates a connection with whoever commissioned the picture. There was such a London-based ship, of 500 tons, built on the river in 1774 and owned from then until after Holman's death by 'Watson & Co' (also noted as B. Watson & Co.). Given that her registered voyage was London to Halifax, Nova Scotia, she probably imported timber on return voyages. There was also at this time a Rotherhithe shipwright called Christopher Watson, who among other vessels built the 500-ton 'Berwick' (1780), a merchantman taken over by the Navy in 1781. Later renamed 'Sirius' she led the 'First Fleet' to Australia in 1787-88, which included the 350-ton 'Prince of Wales' also launched by Watson at Rotherhithe in 1786. It is not known if Christopher Watson, shipwright, was also a shipowner or had such a family connection and he himself does not appear to have owned a shipyard, instead renting space from others for his shipbuilding work. It is none the less possible that this picture illustrates aspects of his operations even though the exact occasion and location at Rotherhithe remain uncertain. The image is all the more interesting because the two central ships shown, one of about 20 guns in a wet berth and the smaller one ready for launch (which the picture commemorates), bear initialled cartouches on the taffrail. That on the left has a crowned cartouche above the letters 'PO', with two open circular ports for chase guns left and right, and then a pair of flying horses in the manner of Pegasus, looking outwards. This suggests it may be a Post Office packet. The vessel on the slip appears to have PO in a simpler cartouche, with two mermen facing inward on either side. Though not a royal event, the Hanoverian royal standard flies on the right, either because of this official connection or perhaps because the date represented is one like George III's birthday or Accession Day.

Construction
Sirius had been converted from the merchantman Berwick. There has been confusion over the early history of Berwick. A note about her by future New South Wales governor Philip Gidley King, describing her as a former 'East country man', was interpreted for many years as relating to the East Indies trade; however, analysis of the maritime nomenclature of the time suggests that this description referred instead to ships participating in the Baltic trade.

Berwick was likely built in 1780 by Christopher Watson and Co. of Rotherhithe, who also built another ship of the First Fleet, Prince of Wales. Berwick had a burthen of 511 83⁄94 tons (bm) and, after being burnt in a fire, was bought and rebuilt by the Royal Navy in November 1781, retaining her original name.


Class and type: 10-gun ship (as Sirius)
Tons burthen :511 83⁄94 (bm)
Length:
110 ft 5 in (33.7 m) (gundeck)
89 ft 8.75 in (27.3 m) (keel)
Beam: 32 ft 9 in (9.98 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft (4 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 50
Armament: 10 guns:
4 × 6pdrs
6 × 18pdr carronades


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard detail, and longitudinal half-breadth for Berwick (1781), a purchased merchantman, as taken off and fitted at Deptford Dockyard as a 24?-gun Armed Storeship. The plan includes a table of the mast and yard dimensions. Signed by Adam Hayes [Master Shipwright, Deptford Dockyard, 1755-1785 (died)].

As HMS Berwick
The newly purchased vessel was fitted out and coppered at Deptford Dockyard between December 1781 and April 1782, for a total sum of £6,152.11s.4d. When completed she carried 10 guns, four 6-pounder long guns, and six 18-pounder carronades. She was commissioned for service under her first commander, Lieutenant Bayntun Prideaux in January 1782, and went out to North America later that year. She spent the last part of the American War of Independence there, transferring to the West Indies in June 1784. Paid off in February 1785 she was initially laid up before being fitted for sea between September and December 1786 for service with the First Fleet. She was nominally rated as a sixth-rate, allowing her to be commanded by a post-captain, though she retained her armament of only 10 guns, and on 12 October 1786 Berwick was renamed Sirius, after the southern star Sirius.

Armament as Berwick​

1.1782 Broadside Weight = 108 Imperial Pound ( 48.978 kg)
Gun Deck 6 British 18-Pound Carronade
Gun Deck 14 British 6-Pounder
Gun Deck 4 British 6-Pounder

Voyage of the First Fleet
Sirius sailed under the command of Captain John Hunter and carried Captain Arthur Phillip, who would be the first governor of the new colony. She also carried Major Robert Ross, commander of the Royal Marines who would be responsible for providing security for the colony. The surgeons on this ship were George Bouchier Worgan and Thomas Jamison. According to Sirius midshipman Daniel Southwell, she also carried Larcum Kendall K1 timekeeper used by Captain James Cook on his second and third voyages around the world.

Sirius, with the other ten vessels of the First Fleet, left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 and arrived at Botany Bay on 20 January 1788, two days after the Armed Tender HMS Supply. The 252-day voyage, which had gone via Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope, had covered more than 15,000 miles (24,000 km). It soon became clear that Botany Bay was unsuitable for a penal settlement so Sirius helped move the colony farther north to Sydney Cove, Port Jackson on 26 January. While waiting to move, a large gale arose preventing any sailing, during this period the French expeditionary fleet of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérousearrived.


The last letter by Lapérouse on HMS Sirius.

The British cordially received the French. Sirius's captains, through their officers, offered assistance and asked if Lapérouse needed supplies. However the French leader and the British commanders never met personally.

Lapérouse also took the opportunity to send his journals, some charts and some letters back to Europe with Sirius. After obtaining wood and fresh water, the French left on 10 March for New Caledonia, Santa Cruz, the Solomons, the Louisiades, and the western and southern coasts of Australia. The French fleet and all on board were never seen again. The documents carried by Sirius would be its only testament.

Sirius left the colony at Port Jackson on 2 October 1788 when she was sent back to the Cape of Good Hope to get flour and other supplies. The complete voyage, which took more than seven months to complete, returned just in time to save the near-starving colony.

Two years later, on 19 March 1790, Sirius was wrecked on a reef at Norfolk Island while landing stores. Among those who witnessed the ship's demise from shore was Thomas Jamison, the surgeon for the penal settlement. Jamison would eventually become Surgeon-General of New South Wales. Sirius's crew was stranded on Norfolk Island until 21 February 1791, when they were rescued and eventually taken back to England. Hunter returned to New South Wales, serving as the colony's Governor from 1795 to 1799. One of the sailors on Sirius, Jacob Nagle, wrote a first-hand account of the ship's last voyage, wreck, and the crew's stranding. With the settlement in New South Wales still on the brink of starvation, the loss of Sirius left the colonists with only one supply ship.


The melancholy loss of HMS Sirius off Norfolk Island March 19th 1790 - George Raper, National Library of Australia, Canberra, Australia

Legacy

The HMS Sirius memorial in the Sydney suburb of Mosman


from HMS Sirius in Sydney


Monument erected in memory of HMS Sirius at Appley Park, Ryde, Isle of Wight, UK. The fleet sailed from offshore of this location.

Many artefacts have been retrieved from the Sirius wreck. They include three anchors and two carronades. Objects are displayed in the Norfolk Island Museum. Another anchor, as well as a cannon, are on display in Macquarie Place, Sydney. Other Sirius artefacts including an anchor can be viewed at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. A detailed 1:24 scale model of Sirius is displayed in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. Small models of all the First Fleet ships are displayed in the Museum of Sydney.

The Sirius wrecksite is protected by the Commonwealth Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976 and is listed on the Australian National Heritage List.

An Urban Transit Authority First Fleet ferry was named after Sirius in 1984. Bas-relief memorials to the ship were erected in the Sydney suburb of Mosman, Norfolk Island and Ryde, Isle of Wight in 1989, 1990 and 1991 respectively.

The scientific name of the tiny crustacean Mallacoota sirius recalls HMS Sirius. The specimens of this species were collected from the point on the reef where Sirius wrecked.


Launched in 1759, the third HMS Supply was a Royal Navy armed tender that played an important part in the foundation of Australia. The Navy sold her in 1792. She then served commercially until c. 1806.

Class and type:

• Yard Craft (1759-86)
• Armed Tender (1786-92)

Tons burthen: 174 76⁄94 or 186 (bm)
Length:

• 79 ft 4 in (24.2 m) overall
• 64 ft 11 in (19.8 m) (keel)

Beam:22 ft 6 in (6.9 m)
Depth of hold:11 ft 6 in (3.5 m)
Complement:

• 14 as yard craft (1759-86)
• 55 as armed tender (1786-92)

Armament:

• As yard craft: 4 × 3-pounder guns + 6 x ½-pounder swivels
• As armed tender: 4 x 3-pounder guns, 4 x 12-pounder carronades

Replica of HMS Supply in Sydney Harbour in 1938

Construction
Supply was designed in 1759 by shipwright Thomas Slade, as a yard craft for the ferrying of naval supplies. Construction was contracted to Henry Bird of Rotherhithe, for a vessel measuring 168 20⁄94 tons (bm) to be built in four months at £8.80 per ton. In practice, construction took approximately five months from the laying of the keel on 1 May 1759 to launch on 5 October. As built the vessel was also larger than designed, measuring 174 76⁄94 tons (bm) and with a length overall of 79 ft 4 in (24.2 m), a beam of 22 ft 6 in (6.9 m) and a hold depth of 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m).

She had two masts, and was fitted with four small 3-pounder cannons and six 1⁄2-pounder swivel guns. Her armament was substantially increased in 1786 with the addition of four 12-pounder carronades.

Her initial complement was 14 men, rising to 55 when converted to an armed tender for the First Fleet voyage in 1788.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with scroll figurehead, and longitudinal half-breadth for building Supply (1759), a Transport.

Naval service
Supply was used to transport naval supplies between the Thames and Channel ports from 1759 to 1786. Throughout this period she was based at Deptford Dockyard, undergoing minor repairs as required to maintain seaworthiness.

She left Spithead on 13 May 1787, and arrived at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788 with the First Fleet under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip (who had transferred from HMS Sirius at Cape Town). She was captained by Henry Lidgbird Ball, the master was David Blackburn, and the surgeon was James Callam. Supply was the first ship to sail into Port Jackson after the original Botany Bay landing was found unsuitable for settlement.

After the establishment of the initial settlement at Port Jackson, Supply was the link between the colony and Norfolk Island, making 10 trips. Following the loss of Sirius in 1790 she became the colony's only link with the outside world. On 17 April 1790 she was sent to Batavia for supplies, returning on 19 September, her captain having chartered a Dutch vessel, Waaksamheid, to follow with more stores.

Supply left Port Jackson on 26 November 1791 and sailed via Cape Horn reaching Plymouth on 21 April 1792.

A number of David Blackburn's letters to family and friends have survived. These letters describe the events of the voyage and the early days of settlement, including Blackburn's participation in the expedition to Norfolk Island to establish a settlement there in February 1788.


Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the inboard profile, quarter deck, forecastle deck, and upper deck proposed for Supply (1759), a Transport.

Later service
The Admiralty sold her at auction in July 1792 and her new owners renamed her Thomas and Nancy. She then carried coal in the Thames area until 1806.
The Admiralty in October 1793 purchased the American mercantile ship New Brunswick, named her HMS Supply, and sent her out to Botany Bay to replace her predecessor.


A very good scale 1:64 model kit of the HMS Supply is offered by Jotika / Caldercraft - a very good beginners kit of good quality

http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Nelson_4.htm







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sirius_(1786)
http://hmssirius.com.au/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Supply_(1759)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-351614;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=S

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1814 - HMS Severn (40), Cptn. Joseph Nourse, escorting a convoy engaged French frigates Etoile (40), Cptn. Pierre-Henri Phillibert, and Sultane (40), Cptn. Georges Du-Petit-Thouars.


By the end of October 1813 the War of the Sixth Coalition was in its final stages; Emperor Napoleon had been defeated at the Battle of Leipzig by the Allied European armies and was retreating to the borders of France, while the British army under the Lord Wellington had crossed the Pyrenees and was advancing on Toulouse. The French Navy had never recovered from defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and had made no serious effort to put to sea since the abortive attempt which ended in defeat at the Battle of Basque Roads in 1809. British control of the Atlantic Ocean trade routes was at this stage only contested by the small United States Navy and the handful of French raiders capable of evading the Royal Navy's constant close blockade of French ports, which had operated effectively and almost continuously since the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793.

In late October, small raiding squadrons, each consisting of two newly built frigates with picked crews and commanders departed France with instructions to attack British merchant shipping in the Atlantic. The first squadron was dispatched from Cherbourg and consisted of the 40-gun ships Iphigénie and Alcmène. The second sailed from Nantes and comprised the Etoile under Captain Pierre-Henri Philibert and Sultane under Captain Georges Du-Petit-Thouars. While Iphigénie and Alcmène targeted British trade with West Africa, Etoile and Sultane were directed to the centre Atlantic. Iphigénie and Alcmène captured several valuable British merchant ships before being intercepted and defeated on 16 January 1814 near the Canary Islands.

On 18 January 1814 Etoile and Sultane encountered a British merchant convoy at 24°N 53°W in the Central North Atlantic. Sighting distant sails at 04:00, the French captains soon confirmed that the convoy, sailing northwest towards its destination of Bermuda, was defended by only one British warship, the 40-gun frigate HMS Severn under Captain James Nourse. At 07:30, Nourse approached the unidentified ships, determining at 08:40 that they were enemy vessels and giving orders for the convoy to scatter. The French squadron pursued Severn, Nourse opening long-range fire with his stern mounted guns at Etoile at 10:30. The French ship held off returning fire with its bow guns until 16:05 when the range had narrowed considerably, Severn's flight distracting the French sufficiently to allow the convoy to escape. Severn proved to be a fast ship, Nourse successfully holding off pursuit through an exchange of fire at a distance of more than 2 nautical miles (3.7 km). At 17:30 French fire stopped as the range lengthened once more, and Severn began to pull away, Philibert finally calling off pursuit at 08:00 on 19 January.

The French squadron then sailed southwest, arriving at Maio in the Portuguese Cape Verde Islands on 22 January. The squadron anchored at Porto Inglês, and was discovered there at 09:55 the following morning by a British frigate squadron of the 36-gun ships HMS Astrea under Captain George Charles Mackenzie and HMS Creole under Captain John Eveleigh. The British ships were en route to Porto Inglês from Fuerteventura and first spied the French ships, with two small prizes, at anchor from across a promontory, assuming them to be Spanish or Portuguese ships. When the French failed to respond to the coded signals however the British captains realised that the strangers must be enemy vessels and resolved to attack them where they were anchored

On 23rd January ..... Battle of Maio ...... to be continued


HMS Severn was an Endymion-class frigate of the British Royal Navy, launched in 1813 as one of five heavy frigates built to match the powerful American frigates. The shortage of oak meant that she was built of "fir" (actually pine), which meant a considerably shortened lifespan. Nonetheless, the ship saw useful service, especially at the bombardment of Algiers in 1816, before being broken up in 1825.

Class and type: Endymion-class frigate (revived)
Tons burthen: 1,254 87⁄94 bm (as designed)
Length: 159 ft 2 5⁄8 in (48.530 m) (gundeck); 132 ft 2 in (40.28 m) (keel)
Beam: 41 ft 3 in (12.57 m)
Draught: 9 ft 9 in (2.97 m) unladen; 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m) (laden)
Depth of hold: 12 ft 4 in (3.76 m)
Speed: 14.4 knots (26.7 km/h; 16.6 mph)
Complement: 300 (later 340)
Armament:

• UD: 28 × 24-pounder guns
• QD: 16 × 32-pounder carronades
• Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns and 4 × 32-pounder carronades

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

Background
Severn was ordered as a Leda-class frigate of 38 guns, and was to have borne the name Tagus. Relative to her prototype, she received two more guns forward. Tagus was renamed Severn on 7 January 1813, i.e., well before her launching.

War of 1812
Initially commissioned under the command of Captain Joseph Nourse, Severn served in the North Atlantic. On 18 January 1814 she was escorting a convoy from England to Bermuda when she encountered the French 40-gun frigates Sultane and Étoile. Severn drew them away from the convoy, saving it. After a long chase, the French frigates gave up and sailed away.

Later the same year, on 1 May, she captured the American privateer schooner Yankee Lass, armed with nine guns and carrying a crew of 80 men. She was 20 days out of Rhode Island and had not made any captures. At the time, Severn was in company with Surprise.

Severn was among the several British warships that shared in the proceeds of the capture on 10 July of the American schooners William, Eliza, Union, and Emmeline, and the capture on 2 July of the schooner Little Tom.

In the late summer and autumn of 1814, Severn was an important participant in the War of 1812, as she was stationed in Chesapeake Bay to blockade the Patuxent River. It was from this point that the British launched their invasion of Maryland, which led to the Battle of Bladensburg and then the subsequent burning of Washington D.C. On 2 July Severn and Loire captured two schooners, two gun-boats, and a sloop. They also destroyed a large store of tobacco.

On 20 August Severn, the frigate Hebrus, and the gun-brig Manly sailed up the Patuxent to follow the boats as far as possible. Admiral Alexander Cochrane and his force of marines and seamen entered Washington on the night of 24 August. The British then burnt the White House, the Treasury and the War Office. They left at 9 o'clock on the evening of the next day and returned to Nottingham, Maryland on the Patuxent where Cochrane boarded Manly. The campaign cost the Navy one man killed and six wounded, including one man of the Corps of Colonial Marines killed and three wounded.

The draught of this class of frigate was too deep to permit Severn and her sister ships from sailing into the harbour at Baltimore. Her sailors had to kedge rafts holding small cannon and rocket launchers seven miles up the river to Fort McHenry. During the attack on Baltimore Admiral Sir George Cockburn raised his flag on Severn. Although the navy contributed seamen and marines to the land attack, and took casualties, Severn did not suffer any losses.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the inboard profile for Liffey (1813), Forth (1813), Severn (1813), Liverpool (1814), and Glasgow (1814), all fir-built 40-gun Fifth Rate, Frigates building at Blackwall by Wigram, Wells & Green.

Between 1 October 1814 and 25 March 1815, Severn captured thirteen mostly small American merchant vessels, but with several armed vessels among them. These were:

• schooner Speedwell, of five men and 34 tons;
• brig May Flower, of 8 men 60 tons;
• ship Anna Marie, of six men and 120 tons;
• ship Betsy;
• ship Virginia;
• schooner Nonsuch, of five men and 65 tons;
• ship Buonaparte;
• ship Anna;
• schooner Virginia;
• schooner Brant;
• ship Necessity, of four guns, 12 men, and 309 tons;
• schooner Amelia, of 40 tons;
• schooner Resolution; and
• privateer brig Ind, of nine guns, 130 men, and 250 tons.

On 20 December Severn also captured the American letter of marque schooner Banyer. She was armed with four guns and carried a crew of 31 men.

On 10 January 1815, Cockburn landed on Cumberland Island in an effort to tie up American forces and keep them from joining other American forces to help defend New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast. The naval squadron consisted of Dragon (74-guns), Regulus (44 guns; en flute), Brune (56 guns; en flute), Severn, Hebrus (36 guns), Rota (38 guns), Primrose (18 guns), Terror and Devastation (both bomb vessels of 8 guns), and the schooners Canso (10 guns) and Whiting (12 guns).

Main article: Battle of Fort Peter
Five days later a British force first bombarded and then landed near Fort Peter on Point Peter by the town of St. Marys. The British attacked and took the fort without suffering any casualties. They then headed for St. Marys along the St. Mary's River and captured it after skirmishing with a small American force. The British captured two American gunboats and 12 merchantmen, including the East Indiaman Countess of Harcourt, which an American privateer had captured on her way from India to London. The British ended their occupation of St. Marys after about a week and withdrew to Cumberland Island.

On 26 February 1815, Severn recaptured the cargo ship Adventure, which she sent in to Bermuda. This earned Severn salvage money for the vessel and her cargo.

Lastly, on 3 March, Severn destroyed the American privateer Ino. American accounts report that Ino grounded outside of Charleston on 7 March. As hr crew was attempting to free Ino, Severn came on the scene and launched her boats to board Ino. Ino's crew, unaware that the war had ended on 15 February 1815, fired grapeshot and small arms at the British boats, causing them to shear off. Ino' crew then set fire to her and took to their boats and some improvised rafts. A schooner that came out from Charleston rescued almost all. The Ino's crew believed that Captain Nourse of Severn had known for some days that the war had ended. The delay of payment of the head money may have been due to the need to adjudicate the case.

Post-war
Severn was fitted at Chatham for foreign service between February and July 1816. In February the Hon. Frederick W. Aylmer assumed command of Severn. He then sailed her to Gibraltar and then took part in the bombardment of Algiers on 27 August. British casualties were heavy, though those of the Algerines were much heavier. Severn herself had three men killed and 34 wounded. As a result of the attack, the Dey agreed to abolish the enslavement of Christians in perpetuity, and to free all slaves whatsoever then in Algiers. The British also destroyed four large frigates, five large corvettes, numerous gunboats, and numerous merchant vessels. King Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies bestowed on Aylmer the cross of a Commander of the Royal Sicilian Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit. Other captains and officers received similar awards. In May 1818 the participants in the battle were granted an award of £100,000. In 1847 the Admiralty issued the Naval General Service Medal with clasp "Algiers" to the 1328 surviving claimants from the battle.

Severn initially remained in the Mediterranean, first under Captain James Gordon and then under Captain Robert Spencer. From May 1817 Severn saw service off the Kent and Sussex coasts in the Royal Naval Coast Blockade for the Prevention of Smuggling. under the command of Captain William ("Flogging Joey") McCulloch, scourge of the smugglers.

On 6 August 1817 she seized a boat with foreign spirits and five empty boats. Three weeks later she seized Mary, with four smugglers and a quantity of tea, and also seized two empty boats. On 15 December Severn seized Po, which was carrying a cargo of foreign spirits. On 29 March 1818 Severn seized Linot, which was carrying foreign spirits, and two smugglers.

Fate
Severn was in ordinary at Portsmouth in 1822, but by 1824 was at Deptford. She was put up for sale in June 1825 at Deptford, and sold to John Small Sedger, Rotherhithe, for £3,610 on 20 July.


Étoile was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, launched in 1813. The British captured her in 1814 and the Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Topaze. She did not go to sea again until 1818, and was paid off in 1822. She served as a receiving ship until 1850 and was broken up in 1851.

Class and type: Pallas-class fifth-rate frigate
Displacement: 080 tons
Tons burthen: 1060 23⁄94 (bm)
Length:

• 151 ft 5 3⁄8 in (46.161 m) (overall);
• 128 ft 8 1⁄8 in (39.221 m) (keel)

Beam: 39 ft 8 in (12.09 m)
Draught: 5.9 m (19 ft)
Depth of hold: 12 ft 5 1⁄4 in (3.791 m)
Propulsion: 1,950 m2 (21,000 sq ft) of sails
Complement:
French service: 326
British service: 315
Armament:

• French service: 28 × 18-pounder long guns + carronades
• British service
• Upper deck: 28 × 18-pounder guns
• QD: 14 × 32-pounder carronades
• Fc: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 2 × 32-pounder carronades

French service
Initially, Étoile was in the Nantes Division, first under capitaine de vaisseau Le Bozec (27 July to 20 September), and then under capitaine de frégate Henri Pierre Philibert (7 October to 24 November).

She sailed for the Azores with Sultane to engage in commerce raiding. On 18 January 1814 HMS Severn was escorting a convoy from England to Bermuda when she encountered Sultane and Étoile. Severn drew them away from the convoy, saving it. After a long chase, the French frigates gave up and sailed away.

...... to be continued .....


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jobourg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Severn_(1813)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Étoile_(1813)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1876 – Launch of Geltwood, an iron-hulled barque, that was shipwrecked on or about 14 June 1876


Geltwood was an iron-hulled barque that was shipwrecked on or about 14 June 1876 during a storm on a remote stretch of the south east coast of South Australia. Nearing the completion of her maiden voyage from Liverpool bound for Melbourne the ship struck a reef, capsized and broke up. The wreck 37°37′36″S 140°10′51″ECoordinates:

37°37′36″S 140°10′51″E occurred 1.6 km from shore near the northern end of Lake Bonney and 16 km south-east of Southend.

Of the 31 passengers and crew there were no survivors. It wasn't until 5 July that the fate of the ship became known to authorities.



Class and type: Iron Barque
Tonnage: 1056 tons(Net)
Length: 215.5 ft (65.7 m)
Beam: 33.78 ft (10.30 m)
Draft: 6.4 m (21 ft)
Depth: 220.99 ft (67.36 m)
Crew: 28




Looters
The events surrounding Geltwood are made infamous by reports of looting by some locals. The wreck was not reported to the police for two weeks, and in that time a number of people stole equipment and belongings that were washed ashore. A trial was held in Millicent which resulted in the acquittal of two men on the grounds they didn't know looting a shipwreck was a crime.



Relicts
One of the Geltwood anchors can be viewed in Southend at a lookout on Cape Buffon drive. It is a memorial to those who have perished at sea, including local amateur and professional fishermen who have lost their lives at sea.

Another anchor and memorabilia can be viewed at the Millicent Living History Museum. Some Geltwood artifacts are also displayed in the Beachport museum.


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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1884 - The passenger steamer SS City of Columbus ran aground on Devil’s Bridge off the Gay Head Cliffs in Aquinnah, Massachusetts


The passenger steamer City of Columbus ran aground on Devil’s Bridge off the Gay Head Cliffs in Aquinnah, Massachusetts, in the early hours of January 18, 1884. She was owned by Boston & Savannah Steamship Company and was built in 1878 by John Roach and Sons, at Chester, Pennsylvania. City of Columbus made regular runs from Boston, Massachusetts to Savannah, Georgia.


City of Columbus and Revenue Cutter Dexter
Schell and Hogan, 1884

Tonnage: 2250 grt
Tons burthen: 2,200 tons
Length: 275 ft (84 m)
Beam: 38 ft (12 m)
Draft: 26 ft (7.9 m)
Installed power: 1500 hp compound steam engine
Sail plan: auxiliary sails on two masts, fore and aft
Speed: 12.5 kt
Capacity: 200 passengers, 2500 tons cargo
Crew: 45 officers and men (January 18, 1884)



The shipwreck
On January 17, 1884 the steamer City of Columbus left Boston with a crew of 45 under the command of Captain Schuler E. Wright. Wright was very familiar with the area as he had made numerous trips through the reefs and sound of Martha's Vineyard. The captain left the City of Columbus's bridge in the hands of his Second Mate Edward Harding and went below to sleep. While off Martha's Vineyard at 3:45 am on January 18, the lookout yelled to the second mate that the Devil’s Bridge buoy was off the port bow rather than where it should have appeared off the starboard bow just before the ship struck a double ledge of submerged rocks. Harding ordered the Quartermaster, Roderick A. McDonald, to go port followed by Captain Wright's order to "hard port" and once again the City of Columbus smacked against the reef. Wright attempted in vain to free the ship. Attempts to use the sails only pushed the boat further into the reef. After these attempts he decided to go over the “obstruction”. This just made things worse. The captain gathered the 87 passengers from below and was in the midst of explaining their situation when a rush of water into the cabin forced all to the top deck, where a giant wave struck the boat and swept all women and children, and many of the men, into the frozen waters.



Two lifeboats were launched from the City of Columbus only to have the ocean waves smash them against the iron sides of the ship. Passengers and crew attempted to stay afloat in the rough seas by holding onto the rigging of the ship. Lighthouse keeper Horiatio N. Pease and a complement of Gay Head Wampanoag Indians braved the waves in two lifeboats to save passengers that had held on. The sea was so rough that the Indians feared approaching the steamer would cause their own boat to get smashed, so they called to the men to dive off the rigging and come to the lifeboats. Most of those who attempted this were saved by the Indians.



The rescue effort was then continued when the revenue cutter Dexter, skippered by Captain Eric Gabrielson, came to their aid. The Dexter, being a smaller ship, was able to move about the wreckage and pull survivors off the rigging and masts. Two of the survivors were unconscious; Second Lieutenant John U. Rhodes saved them by tying himself to a rope and swimming to the wreck. Even after being hit with a piece of wreckage, he continued, climbing the rigging to bring the men back to safety. The City of Columbus had left Boston with 45 officers and crew and 87 passengers, only 17 crew members and 12 passengers survived the ordeal. This incident was reported as one of the worst ocean disasters of its time.

The shipwreck was later purchased by the Boston Towboat Company in 1886, and some parts were salvaged.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_City_of_Columbus
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Columbus
http://www.wreckhunter.net/DataPages/cityofcolumbus-dat.htm
http://www.questmarineservices.com/exploration/cityOfColumbus.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1911 – Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay, the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.


Eugene Burton Ely (October 21, 1886 – October 19, 1911) was an aviation pioneer, credited with the first shipboard aircraft take off and landing.



Background
Ely was born in Williamsburg, Iowa, and raised in Davenport, Iowa. Having completed the eighth grade, he graduated from Davenport Grammar School 4 in January 1901. Although some sources indicate that he attended and graduated from the Iowa State University in 1904 (when he would have been 17), the registrar of ISU reports that there is no record of his having done so - nor did he attend the University of Iowa or the University of Northern Iowa. Ely likewise does not appear in the graduations lists for Davenport High School. By 1904, Ely was employed as a chauffeur to the Rev. Fr. Smyth, a Catholic priest in Cosgrove, Iowa, who shared Ely's love of fast driving; in Father Smyth's car (a red Franklin), Ely set the speed record between Iowa City and Davenport.

Ely was living in San Francisco at the time of the great earthquake and fire of 1906 and was active there in the early days of the sales and racing of automobiles. He married Mabel Hall on August 7, 1907; he was 21 and she was 17, which meant the marriage required her mother's consent; they honeymooned in Colorado. The Elys relocated to Nevada City, California, in 1909, and for a time he drove an "auto stage" delivery route.

The couple moved to Portland, Oregon, in early 1910, where he got a job as an auto salesman, working for E. Henry Wemme. Soon after, Wemme purchased one of Glenn Curtiss' first four-cylinder biplanes and acquired the franchise for the Pacific Northwest. Wemme was unable to fly the Curtiss biplane, but Ely, believing that flying was as easy as driving a car, offered to fly it. He ended up crashing it instead, and feeling responsible, he bought the wreck from Wemme. Within a few months he had repaired the aircraft and learned to fly. He flew it in the Portland area, then headed to Minneapolis, Minnesota in June 1910 to participate in an exhibition, where he met Curtiss and started working for him. After an unsuccessful attempt in Sioux City, Iowa, Ely's first reported exhibition on behalf of Curtiss was in Winnipeg in July 1910. Ely received the Aero Club of America pilot's license #17 on October 5, 1910.

Naval aviation firsts


Ely takes off from the USS Birmingham, Hampton Roads, Virginia, November 14, 1910

In October, Ely and Curtiss met Captain Washington Chambers, USN, who had been appointed by George von Lengerke Meyer, the Secretary of the Navy, to investigate military uses for aviation within the Navy. This led to two experiments. On November 14, 1910, Ely took off in a Curtiss pusher from a temporary platform erected over the bow of the light cruiser USS Birmingham. The airplane plunged downward as soon as it cleared the 83-foot platform runway; and the aircraft wheels dipped into the water before rising. Ely's goggles were covered with spray, and the aviator promptly landed on a beach rather than circling the harbor and landing at the Norfolk Navy Yard as planned. John Barry Ryan offered $500 to build the platform, and a $500 prize, for a ship to shore flight.


First fixed-wing aircraft landing on a warship: Ely landing his plane on board the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay, January 18, 1911.

Two months later, on January 18, 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay. Ely flew from the Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California and landed on the Pennsylvania, which was the first successful shipboard landing of an aircraft. This flight was also the first ever using a tailhook system, designed and built by circus performer and aviator Hugh Robinson. Ely told a reporter: "It was easy enough. I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten."



Ely communicated with the United States Navy requesting employment, but United States naval aviation was not yet organized. Ely continued flying in exhibitions while Captain Chambers promised to "keep him in mind" if Navy flying stations were created. Captain Chambers advised Ely to cut out the sensational features for his safety and the sake of aviation. When asked about retiring, The Des Moines Register quoted Ely as replying: "I guess I will be like the rest of them, keep at it until I am killed."


Curtiss Pusher replica in flight in 2011

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the flight, Naval Commander Bob Coolbaugh flew a personally built replica of Ely's Curtiss from the runway at NAS Norfolk on November 12, 2010. The U.S. Navy planned to feature the flying demonstration at Naval anniversary events across America.

Death
On October 19, 1911, while flying at an exhibition in Macon, Georgia, his plane was late pulling out of a dive and crashed. Ely jumped clear of the wrecked aircraft, but his neck was broken, and he died a few minutes later. Spectators picked the wreckage clean looking for souvenirs, including Ely's gloves, tie, and cap. On what would have been his twenty-fifth birthday, his body was returned to his birthplace for burial.

On February 16, 1933, Congress awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross posthumously to Ely, "for extraordinary achievement as a pioneer civilian aviator and for his significant contribution to the development of aviation in the United States Navy." An exhibit of retired naval aircraft at Naval Air Station Norfolk in Virginia bears Ely's name, and a granite historical marker in Newport , Virginia, overlooks the waters where Ely made his historic flight in 1911 and recalls his contribution to military aviation, naval in particular.



The second USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4/CA-4), also referred to as Armored Cruiser No. 4, and later renamed Pittsburgh, was a United States Navy armored cruiser, the lead ship of her class. She was originally assigned the name Nebraska but was renamed Pennsylvania on 7 March 1901.


Tinted postcard of USS Pennsylvania, from around 1905–1908

She was laid down on 7 August 1901, by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia, launched on 22 August 1903. Pennsylvania was sponsored by Miss Coral Quay, daughter of Senator Matthew S. Quay of Pennsylvania, and commissioned on 9 March 1905, with Captain Thomas C. McLean in command.





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Burton_Ely
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pennsylvania_(ACR-4)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1916 - Scotia, a barque that was built in 1872 as the Norwegian whaler Hekla, was destroyed by fire


Scotia was a barque that was built in 1872 as the Norwegian whaler Hekla. She was purchased in 1902 by William Spiers Bruce and refitted as a research vessel for use by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. After the expedition, she served as a sealer, patrol vessel and collier. She was destroyed by fire in January 1916.


Scotia on Laurie Island (South Orkney Islands) during Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-1904)

Description
The ship was 139 feet 6 inches (42.5 m), with a beam of 28 feet 9 inches (8.8 m). She had a draught of 15 feet 6 inches (4.7 m). The ship was assessed at 375 GRT.



History
Hekla was built as a barque in 1872 by Jørgensen & Knudsen, Drammen for S. S. Svendsen of Sandefjord. She was used as a sealer, making voyages to the east coast of Greenland from 1872–82 and to Scoresby Sound in 1892. In 1896, she was sold to N. Bugge, Tønsberg. She was sold in 1898 to A/S Sæl- og Hvalfangerskib Hekla, Christiania and was placed under the management of M. C. Tvethe. Hekla was sold in 1900 to A/S Hecla, Sandefjord, operated under the management of Anders Marcussen.

In 1902, she was purchased by William Spiers Bruce for kr 45,000 (£2,650). She was renamed Scotia and was rebuilt by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company for use as a research vessel by the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. The ship was strengthened internally, with beams 25 inches (640 mm) thick added to resist the pressure of ice whilst in the Antarctic. A new steam engine was fitted, which drove a single screw propeller. It could propel the vessel at 7 knots (13 km/h). The work was supervised by Fridtjof Nansen. When the conversion of the ship was complete, she was inspected by Colin Archer, who had prepared Fram for Nansen's 1893 expedition to the Arctic. Thomas Robertson was appointed captain of Scotia. He had twenty years experience of sailing in the Arctic and Antarctic on board the whalers Active and Balaena. Sea trials of the rebuilt ship were conducted in August 1902.



Scotia sailed on 2 November 1902 for the Antarctic. She arrived at the Falkland Islands on 6 January 1903, She then sailed to Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands where she arrived on 25 March. Scotia overwintered in Scotia Bay, where she was frozen in for eight months. She departed for the Falkland Islands on 27 November, en route for Buenos Aires, Argentina where she underwen a refit. Scotia returned to Laurie Island on 14 February 1904, sailing eight days later for the Weddell Sea. She departed from the Antarctic on 21 March. Calling at Saint Helena in June, she arrived at Millport, Cumbrae, Ayrshire on 21 July, and was escorted by a number of ships to her final destination of Gourock, Renfrewshire.

Following the expedition, it was planned that Scotia would see further use by the universities of Scotland as a research vessel. However, she was sold by auction in an effort to recoup some of the costs of the expedition. She served as a sealer and whaler until 1913, operating off the coast of Greenland. Following the loss of Titanic, she was then chartered by the Board of Trade for use as a weather ship on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, warning shipping of icebergs. A Marconi wireless was installed to enable her to communicate with stations on the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland. Following this, she became a collier, sailing between the United Kingdom and France. On 18 January 1916, she caught fire and was burnt out in the Bristol Channel off Sully Island, Glamorgan. Her crew survived.

Stamps
Scotia was depicted on a 5/- stamp issued by the Falkland Islands. She was also depicted on two stamps issued by the British Antarctic Territory.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotia_(barque)
http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/scotia/index.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
18 January 1939 - Herzogin Cecilie, a German-built four-mast barque (windjammer), sank


Herzogin Cecilie was a German-built four-mast barque (windjammer), named after German Crown Princess Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886–1954), spouse of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1882–1951) (Herzogin being German for Duchess). She sailed under German, French and Finnish flags.





The Beauty: Duchess Cecilie, Crown Princess of Prussia, in 1908, for whom the vessel was named.

History
Herzogin Cecilie was built in 1902 by Rickmers Schiffbau AG in Bremerhaven. She was yard number 122 and was launched on 22 April 1902. Completion was on 7 June that year. She was 334 feet 8 inches (102.01 m) long, with a breadth of 46 feet 3 inches (14.10 m) and a draught of 24 feet 2 inches (7.37 m). Herzogin Cecilie was built for Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen. Unlike other contemporary German merchant sailing ships, the black Flying-P-Liners or the green ships of Rickmers, she was painted in white. She was one of the fastest windjammers ever built: she logged 21 knots at Skagen.

The tall ships of the time remained competitive against the steamers only on the longer trade routes: the Chilean nitrate trade, carrying salpeter from Chile to Europe, and the Australian wheat trade, carrying grain from Australia to Europe. Both routes required rounding Cape Horn routinely, and were not well suited for steamers, as coal was in short supply there.

Herzogin Cecilie was one of the fastest merchant sailing ships of her time, on a par with the Flying-P-Liners. The trip around Cape Horn from Portland (Oregon) to The Lizard (England) was done in 1903 in only 106 days.

At the outbreak of World War I, she was interned by Chile, returning to Germany in 1920, only to be given to France as reparation, and subsequently sold to Gustaf Erikson (24 October 1872 – 15 August 1947) of Finland for £4250. She was homeported at Mariehamn.

As the freight rates for salpeter had dropped after the war, Gustaf Erikson sent her to bring grain from Australia. In so-called grain races, several tall ships tried to arrive first in Europe, to sell their cargo for a higher price, as told, for example, in The Great Tea Race of 1866 or The Last Grain Race. Typically, ships were loaded in the Spencer Gulf area, Port Victoria, South Australia or Wallaroo, South Australia, and travelled to Europe, with ports on the British Isles like Queenstown, Ireland or Falmouth, Cornwall being considered as the finish. The ship also passed by Queensland where she was photographed.


Herzogin Cecilie, photographed at Queensland, Australia

After "winning" four times prior to 1921, she again won the grain race four times in eleven trips from 1926 to 1936.

In 1927, when Herzogin Cecilie covered Port Lincoln (South Australia) –Falmouth, London and won a race against the Swedish ship Beatrice. Alan Villiers was on board, which would result in his book Falmouth for Orders, and later a trip aboard the barque Parma.


Wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie


Wreck of the Herzogin Cecilie in south Devon

With Sven Erikson as her captain and Elis Karlsson her first mate, the ship left Port Lincoln in South Australia on 21 January 1935, with a cargo of wheat, and after taking a more southerly route than usual, reached Falmouth for Orders on 18 May making her passage of 86 days the second fastest ever. Herzogin Cecilie was making for Ipswich in dense fog, when, on 25 April 1936, she grounded on Ham Stone Rock and drifted onto the cliffs of Bolt Head on the south Devon coast. After parts of the cargo were unloaded, she was floating again, only to be towed in June 1936 to Starhole (Starehole) Bay at the mouth of the nearby Kingsbridge Estuary near Salcombe, and beached there. On 18 January 1939, the ship capsized and sank. The remains of the ship sit at a depth of 7 metres at 50°12.82′N 3°47.02′W.

The timber and brass portholes from the chart room were salvaged and used to construct a small room in the Cottage Hotel at Hope Cove, which can still be visited today. The room contains several photographs and press cuttings of the wreck. There is also a collection of items from the ship in a small museum at Sven Eriksson's family home at Pellas, in Lemland, on the Aland Islands of Finland. By far the best relic of the vessel is the beautifully restored captain's cabin, which the owner salvaged before the ship was abandoned and was finally installed in the Maritime Museum in Mariehamn, Finland.

The ship and her last voyage were memorialized in a folk song by Ken Stephens, Herzogin Cecile.

Official numbers and code letters
Official Numbers were a forerunner to IMO Numbers. Herzogin Cecilie had the Finnish Official Number 703 and used the Code Letters TPMK.







https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzogin_Cecilie
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1.......0....2j1..gws-wiz-img.lIBZhcqw8Cw#imgrc=_

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
Other Events on 18 January


1589 – Death of Magnus Heinason, Faroese naval hero (b. 1545)

Magnus Heinason (Mogens Heinesøn) (1548 – 18 January 1589) was a Faroese naval hero, trader and privateer.

Magnus Heinason served William the Silent and his son Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange for 10 years as a privateer, fighting the Spanish in the Dutch Revolt. Magnus Heinason was given the trading rights to the Faroe Islands by King Frederick II of Denmark and Norway from 1559 to 1588. Later he received letters of marque to sink or capture pirate ships and English merchant ships.
Magnus built the first fortifications in Tórshavn. Only one year later, he was captured and sent to Copenhagen on the orders of the Danish treasurer and statholder, Christoffer Walkendorf (1525–1601) who was ruling Denmarkafter the sudden death of Frederick II. Magnus Heinason was tried, and was beheaded 18th January 1589. His widow, Sofie von Günsterberg, and his business partner Hans Lindenov (d. 1610) contested this act and brought the matter to an assembly of nobles (Herrendag) at the seaport of Kolding. Magnus Heinason's death sentence was declared void on 6th of August 1590 and posthumously he was rehabilitated. Valkendorff was suspended from his duties and was forced to pay 3,000 Reichsthaler to the heirs. Magnus Heinason's remains were exhumed and taken to Ørslev Kloster (Ørslevkloster) on Lindenov's estate where they lie under the floor of the monastery church until this day.

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


1625 - Several Vessels purchased in January 1625 at Blavet from the Order of the Milice Chrétienne;

Vessels purchased in January 1625 at Blavet from the Order of the Milice Chrétienne; on 18 January all five were captured by Huguenot forces in a raid, but were retaken or destroyed by the King's forces later in 1625

Saint Basile (1625) - disposal unknown
Saint François (1625) - destroyed in action 17 September 1625
Saint Jean (1625) - converted to fireship 1640
Saint Louis de Nevers (1625) - disposal unknown
Saint Michel (1625) - deleted 1629

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


1778 – James Cook is the first known European to discover the Hawaiian Islands, which he names the "Sandwich Islands".

After returning Omai, Cook delayed his onward journey until 7 December when he travelled north and on 18 January 1778 became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. In passing and after initial landfall at Waimea harbour, Kauai, Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich—the acting First Lord of the Admiralty. They observed that the inhabitants spoke a version of the Polynesian language familiar to them from their previous travels in the South Pacific.


Map of the Hawaiian Islands made by one of Cook's officers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_voyage_of_James_Cook
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook


1779 - Launch of Diane - french Sibylle class frigate

Sibylle class, (32-gun design by Jacques-Noël Sané, with 26 x 12-pounder and 6 x 6-pounder guns).


Start of the action between HMS Magicienne and La Sibylle, 2 January 1783.

Sibylle, (launched 30 August 1777 at Brest) – captured by the British Navy 1783.
Diane, (launched 18 January 1779 at Saint-Malo) – wrecked 1780.
Néréide, (launched 31 May 1779 at Saint-Malo) – captured by the British Navy 1797.
Fine, (launched 11 August 1779 at Nantes) – wrecked 1794.
Émeraude, (launched 25 October 1779 at Nantes) – broken up 1797.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibylle-class_frigate


1813 - Start of campaign to capture islands of Lagosta and Carzola, Adriatic, by HMS Apollo (38), Cptn. Bridges W. Taylor, and troops.

HMS Apollo, the fifth ship of the Royal Navy to be named for the Greek god Apollo, was a fifth-rate frigate of the Lively class, carrying 38 guns, launched in 1805 and broken up in 1856.


Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for 'Leda' (1800), and later with alterations for 'Pomone' (1805), 'Shannon' (1806), 'Leonidas' (1807), 'Surprise' (1812), 'Lacedemonian' (1812), 'Tenedos' (1812), 'Lively' (1804), 'Trinocomalee' (1817), 'Amphitrite' (1816), 'Hebe' (1826), and 'Venus' (1820), all 38-gun Fifth Rate, Frigates.

Between 18 January and 3 February 1813, Apollo, together with the privateer Esperanza and four gunboats, and some 300 troops under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel G. D. Robertson, captured Augusta and Carzola Islands. At Augusta, a party of seamen from Apollo spiked the guns of one battery. On 1 February Taylor sailed Apollo, the brig-sloop Imogen, under the command of Lieutenant Charles Taylor, and Gunboat No. 43, under the command of Mr. Antonio Pardo, to Carzola. There Captain Taylor commanded a landing party that silenced several sea batteries. When the town capitulated the British captured a privateer that had "molested the trade of the Adriatic", and two of her prizes. That day the British also captured seven vessels in the Channel, sailing to Ragusa and Cattaro, principally with grain, which was in short supply there. The action at Carzola cost Apollo two men dead, one of whom drowned, and one man wounded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Apollo_(1805)


1868 – Birth of Kantarō Suzuki, Japanese admiral and politician, 42nd Prime Minister of Japan (d. 1948)

Baron Kantarō Suzuki (鈴木 貫太郎, 18 January 1868 – 17 April 1948[1]) was an admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy, member and final leader of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association and 42nd Prime Minister of Japanfrom 7 April to 17 August 1945



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


1879 - USS Constitution, while sailing back to the U.S. from France, ran aground off Bollard Head on the south coast of England. She was towed to the Portsmouth Navy Yard and placed in Dry Dock 11 for inspection. The 82-year-old frigate survived the grounding and only needed to have 85 feet of her false keel replaced and several sheets of underwater copper. She resumed her voyage home on January 24th.

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


1885 - A Marine guard from steamer USS Alliance lands at Colon, Panama, (then in Colombia) to guard the railroad and to protect American lives and property during a period of political unrest.

The second USS Alliance was a screw gunboat that was in service from 1877–1911 with the United States Navy.



Laid down as Huron, a screw gunboat of the third rate, in 1873 at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Alliance was launched on 8 March 1875. She was sponsored by Miss Eulalie Boush, whose father, Naval Constructor George R. Boush, was superintending the warship's construction. However, before Huron joined the fleet, she was renamed Alliance to honor the Revolutionary War frigate. Ultimately, Alliance was commissioned on 18 January 1877, Commander Theodore F. Kane in command.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Alliance_(1875)


1913 – First Balkan War: A Greek flotilla defeats the Ottoman Navy in the Naval Battle of Lemnos, securing the islands of the Northern Aegean Sea for Greece. (see 5th January)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lemnos_(1913)


1942 - Submarine USS Plunger (SS 179) sinks the Japanese freighter Eizan Maru (ex-Panamanian Aurora) off the mouth of Kii Strait, Honshu.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Plunger_(SS-179)


1962 - USS Duxbury Bay transfers a Navy doctor to help a Danish crewman after a flash fire burned him onboard Danish tanker Prima Maersk in the Persian Gulf.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Duxbury_Bay_(AVP-38)


1991 - During Operation Desert Storm, HSL-44 (Det 8) SH-60Bs from USS Nicholas (FFG 47), along with Kuwaiti and Army vessels, engage and neutralize Iraqi forces on nine oil platforms in the Durrah oil field.


2011 - Operation Dawn of Gulf of Aden (Korean: 아덴만 여명 작전) was a naval operation by the Republic of Korea Navy against Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea.

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

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1764 - Launch of French Ville de Paris, a large 90-gun ship of the line, that became famous as the flagship of the Comte de Grasse during the American Revolutionary War.


Ville de Paris was a large three-decker French ship of the line that became famous as the flagship of the Comte de Grasse during the American Revolutionary War.



Originally laid down in 1757 as the 90-gun Impétueux, she was funded by the City of Paris and renamed Ville de Paris in 1762 as a result of the don des vaisseaux, Duc de Choiseul’s campaign to raise funds for the navy from the cities and provinces of France.

Class and type: First-rate ship of the line
Length: 54 m (177 ft)
Beam: 14.6 m (48 ft)
Draught: 6.7 m (22 ft)
Armament:

• 90 guns:
• • 30 × 36-pounder long guns
  • 32 × 24-pounder long guns
  • 28 ×12-pounder long guns
• 104 guns
• • 14 × 8-pounder long guns were added in 1779

She was completed in 1764 as a 90-gun first rate, just too late to serve in the Seven Years' War. She was one of the first three-deckers to be completed for the French navy since the 1720s.

In 1778, on the French entry into the American Revolutionary War she was commissioned at Brest, joining the fleet as the flagship of the Comte de Guichen. In July she fought in the indecisive Battle of Ushant (1778).

At some point during the next two years, she had an additional 14 small guns mounted on her previously unarmed quarterdeck, making her a 104-gun ship.

In March 1781 she sailed for the West Indies as flagship of a fleet of 20 ships of the line under the Comte de Grasse. She then fought at the Battle of Fort Royal, and the Battle of the Chesapeake.

In 1782, she fought in the Battle of St. Kitts as De Grasse's flagship.


The Battle of the Saintes, 12 April 1782: surrender of the Ville de Paris by Thomas Whitcombe, painted 1783, shows Hood's Barfleur, centre, attacking the French flagship Ville de Paris, right.
The Saints are a group of small islets in the West Indies between Guadeloupe and Dominica. They gave their name to the final sea battle of the War of American Independence, 1775-83, which was fought under their lee between the British West Indies fleet commanded by Admiral Sir George Rodney, with 36 ships of the line, and his French counterpart, Vice-Admiral the Comte de Grasse with 30 ships of the line. De Grasse had sailed from Fort Royal, Martinique, with a trade convoy and a large military force. Having dispatched the former for Europe he aimed to move on to attack the British island of Jamaica. Rodney, watching from St Lucia, pursued him and fought a running action off Dominica on 9 April, concluding with a victorious set-piece battle south-west of the Saints three days later. The latter is chiefly remembered for introducing the tactic of 'breaking the line'. This Rodney did against de Grasse as the two fleets passed on opposing courses and the French line was forced into more open order by a change of wind. Rodney led the way through a gap, casting the enemy into disorder by engaging from the opposite side. The tactic was subsequently adopted in the Navy as a desirable addition to fighting instructions. The painting shows the 'Barfleur' in action in the centre, pouring a broadside from her starboard guns into the stricken French flagship, 'Ville de Paris'. The latter is to the right, striking her colours, with both ships in starboard-quarter view. 'Barfleur' flies the red distinguishing flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood at the mizzen, a red ensign at the stern, and a red signal flag at the fore. In the extreme right foreground is the stern of another surrendered Frenchman. In the left foreground a boat full of cheering sailors is pulling over to take possession of a dismasted Frenchman on the extreme left. On the left and considerably beyond is Rodney's 'Formidable', in starboard-quarter view, firing her starboard guns into a Frenchman, seen in port-bow view with a missing foremast. The French ship 'Ardent', 64 guns, is visible on the far right flying the red ensign over French colours to indicate it has been captured. The 'Ardent' was built at Hull in 1764 and captured by the French in 1779. Following her recapture at this battle she was renamed 'Tiger'. Across the background are other ships in action. Whitcombe was born in London in about 1752 and painted ship portraits, battle scenes, harbour views and ships in storms. Although his output was vast, little is known about him. He produced a large number of subjects from the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793-1815, and exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1783 and 1824. His depiction of ships implies specific knowledge of life at sea, although he probably spent most of his career in London. Many of his works were engraved and they included 50 plates to James Jenkins's account of 'The Naval Achievements of Great Britain', published in 1817. The painting is one of a pair with BHC0445 and is signed and dated 'T.Whitcombe 1782'.


The chief aspiration of the French in the West Indies in 1782, at the end of the War of American Independence, was the capture of Jamaica. Sailing from Fort Royal, Martinique, their fleet under the Comte de Grasse was first engaged by the British West Indies Fleet under Admiral Sir George Brydges Rodney off Dominica on 9 April, and more conclusively off the group of islets to the north called the Saints (Les Saintes) on the 12th. Rodney's victory proved a counterbalance to the loss of the British colonies in America, allowing Britain to secure superiority over the French in the Caribbean at the ensuing Treaty of Versailles which ended the war in 1783. However, he was much criticised for what was considered by Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, the junior admiral, and others, his failure to follow up adequately the opportunities that were available to him during the action. As the opposing battle lines engaged on opposing parallel courses, a slight change of wind enabled Rodney to sail through the French line and throw it into disorder - the first (albeit fortuitous) use of the tactic of 'breaking the line' - and the action soon became a general chase. The French flagship, 'Ville de Paris', 104 guns, surrendered to Hood and not to Rodney in the 'Formidable', 98 guns, as suggested by this painting, which represents the French flagship in the centre, in port-quarter view and hauling down her colours, while the 'Formidable', also in port-quarter view, still engages her to starboard. Beyond the 'Ville de Paris' can be seen the port bow of the 'Barfleur', 98 guns, which is pouring in a raking fire. The 'Formidable' is also engaged to starboard with a partially dismasted French two-decker. In the right background is a group of ships including two French prizes. Beyond the 'Barfleur' in the left background are two ships in action, port-quarter view, and another group beyond them. On the extreme left an English two-decker, in starboard-quarter view, is in action to port. In the left foreground is a spar and sail with a couple of sailors clinging to it and in the right foreground are two ships' longboats. The picture correctly shows Rodney's fleet flying red ensigns, despite his being an admiral of the white squadron (as shown by the St George's flag at the main of 'Formidable'). This was the result of his order to fly red to avoid confusion with the white Bourbon ensigns of the enemy. The fact that he and Hood also fly red at the fore is probably for the same reason, in Hood's case for the additional one that although second-in-command he shared the same nominal rank (rear-admiral of the blue) with the third-in-command, Francis Drake, in the 70-gun 'Princesa'. Since the painting shares many similarities with one with the same title by Thomas Luny (see BHC0701) it may owe much to an engraving of Luny's work by Peter Mazell (PAG8899). It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1784 and is signed and dated 'T. Mitchell 1782.

At the Battle of the Saintes on 12 April 1782, the British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse, and captured Ville de Paris.

The ship did not live up to the motto of her namesake city, Fluctuat nec mergitur (Latin: Tossed by the waves, she does not sink), for she sank in September 1782 with other ships when the 1782 Central Atlantic hurricane hit the fleet off Newfoundland Admiral Graves was leading back to England. Ville de Paris sank with the loss of all hands but one.


The Ville de Paris, Foundering in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (PAD6009)


Plate IV. A View of the Sea on the Morning after the Storm, with the distressed situation of the Centaur, Ville de Paris and the Glorieux as seen from the Lady Juliana, the Ville de Paris passing to Windward under close reef'd Topsails (PAH8434)

A ship of the line of the Royal Navy was named after her: HMS Ville de Paris, launched in 1795.

Cannon
Two of her guns were retained in Jamaica, they now flank the Rodney memorial in Spanish Town, Jamaica.[


French Period of Louis XV (1715 to 1774)
(Great-grandson of Louis XIV) As Louis XV was only 5½ years old when he succeeded to the French throne, the first eight years of this reign were under the Regency of Philippe of Orléans, Duke of Chartres, the nephew of Louis XIV. While the five Rangs theoretically remained in existence, the construction by 1715 had crystallised around a number of distinct types, based on the number of carriage guns which they each carried.

First Rank ships ("vaisseaux de Premier Rang") in the Louis XV era
Three-decker type

Only four three-decker ships were completed during this reign of nearly sixty years; a fifth was destroyed before completion.

• Foudroyant 110 (launched April 1724 at Brest) – condemned 1742 and taken to pieces 1742-43.
• Royal Louis 118 (built from 1740 at Brest but never launched – burnt by arson while still on the stocks there on 25 December 1742).
• Royal Louis 116 (launched May 1759 at Brest) – condemned September 1772 and taken to pieces 1773.
• Ville de Paris 90 (launched 19 January 1764 at Rochefort) – laid down as Impétueux in 1757, renamed January 1762. Enlarged to 104 guns in 1778-70, captured by the British at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, sank in a storm on 19 September 1782.
• Bretagne 100 (later 110) guns. Designed by Antoine Groignard. (launched 24 May 1766 at Brest) – renamed Révolutionnaire in October 1793, conmenned and taken to pieces in 1796.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Ville_de_Paris_(1764)
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...0;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=V;start=0

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1782 - HMS Hinchinbrook, ex French privateer Astrée, captured by British in 1778, wrecked


HMS Hinchinbrook was the French privateer Astrée, which the British captured in 1778 and took into the Royal Navy as a 28-gun sixth-rate frigate. She was Captain Horatio Nelson's second navy command, after the brig HMS Badger, and his first as post-captain. She was wrecked, with no loss of life, in January 1783.

Class and type: 28-gun sixth rate frigate
Tons burthen: 557 (bm)
Length: 115 ft (35 m)
Beam: 33 ft 3 in (10.13 m)
Depth of hold: 15 ft (4.6 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 200
Armament:

• Gun deck: 24 x 9-pounder guns
• QD: 4 x 6-pounder guns

Privateering career
Hinchinbrook started life as the French merchant vessel Astrée, built in 1778 at Nantes, and her owners were Guilliaume and Son, of that city. She was carrying a cargo of bricks and bale goods from Nantes when a British squadron under Captain Joseph Deane in HMS Ruby captured her off Cape François, on 13 October 1778. She was described as being a ship of 650 tons, armed with 14 guns, and under the command of Louis David, master. A prize crew then took her into port, where the Royal Navy purchased her for the sum of £5,650 on 1 December 1778, renaming her as a courtesy to Viscount Hinchinbroke, eldest son of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty in Lord North's administration.

British career
Admiral Sir Peter Parker had intended to have Hinchinbrook upgraded to a 32-gun fifth rate, but this never came about. Instead, she became a 28-gun sixth rate, with a crew of 200 men. She was commissioned that December at Jamaica under Commander Christopher Parker. In May 1779, Captain Charles Nugent replaced Parker, who had been promoted to post captain in March. In September, Captain Horatio Nelson took command of Hinchinbrook and escorted a convoy to Greytown, Nicaragua.

Nelson and Hinchinbrook were based in the San Juan River from January until April 1780. Hinchinbrook's assignment was to support an expedition that Major-General John Dalling'swanted to capture the Spanish colonies in Central America, including an assault on the fortress of San Juan. Hinchinbrook was to take troops to the mouth of the San Juan River and wait for their return. The troops would go 70 miles up the river, take the fort, and then go on to capture other Spanish possessions. The expeditionary force was small, it was the dry season and so the river was low, and the climate was putrid. Nelson decided to leave Hinchinbrook and take the troops up the river himself. He used small boats that would ground in the shallows and have to be dragged by hand. At one point, a barefoot Nelson led a small group of sailors to capture the out fort of San Bartholomew. The force eventually did reach Fort San Juan and captured it, but between war and disease, about 140 of Hinchinbrook's crew of 200 men died and the whole expedition too was decimated. Nelson himself became ill, and debilitated by dysentery, withdrew Hinchinbrook back down the river. His friend Captain Cuthbert Collingwood replaced him in command of Hinchinbrook and brought the remainder of the expedition back to Jamaica.[6] (Nelson and Collingwood had served together three years earlier in Lowestoffe; the transport Victor took Nelson from Hinchinbrook to Jamaica, where he took command of the frigate HMS Janus of 44 guns.)

Collingwood remained in command of Hinchinbrook until December, when Captain Charles Hotchkys replaced him. Hotchkys's replacement, in February 1781, was Captain George Stoney, who in turn was replaced by Captain Sylverius Moriaty in June 1781. Moriaty was one among many navy personnel who suffered in the unhealthy climate of the West Indies; he was twice relieved during his period of command by Captain John Fish due to his health problems. Fish last commanded Hinchinbrook from 21 September 1781 to 12 February 1782, but apparently was on six weeks leave in January 1782.

On 13 January 1782 Admiral Peter Parker appointed Lieutenant John Markham to command Hinchinbroke. Markham's orders were to cruise off the east end of Jamaica to protect trade.

Fate
Hinchinbrook left Port Royal, Jamaica on 19 January 1782 and almost immediately started to take on water. The next day Markham decided to try to get to St Anne’s Bay, Jamaica but as she approached the harbour she stopped responding to the helm and she ran aground on the west reef going into the harbour. Despite numerous efforts, her crew was unable to get her over or off the reef. A schooner came alongside and took off her guns, some stores, and her crew. She then sank that night




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Hinchinbrook_(1778)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1799 - Action of 19 January 1799


The Action of 19 January 1799 was a minor naval battle of the French Revolutionary Wars fought in waters of the Strait of Gibraltar, off Punta Europa. A Spanish squadron of 14 gunboats with a mistico as flagship, commanded by Francisco Mourelle de la Rua, attacked a British merchant convoy escorted by several Royal Navy warships, among them a 74-gun ship of the line. The British warships failed to defend the convoy, losing a gunboat sunk and another captured. The convoy also lost a ship and two brigs. For this action Mourelle de la Rua was promoted to frigate captain.

Background


Engraving of a Spanish gunboat of the late 18th century.

Once the Spanish Navy realized how useful gunboats could be in naval warfare, they established a base for them at Algeciras. The deployment had two objectives: first, impede British naval trade with Gibraltar and second, protect Spain's own commerce.

During the Great Siege of Gibraltar Admiral Antonio Barceló commanded the naval forces responsible for blockading the bay that included a fleet of several xebecs and gunboats. One of his successors was Francisco Antonio Mourelle de la Rua, who was appointed to Algecirasin 1797 and took part in more than 41 actions against the British.

Action - the Spanish account


Portrait of Mourelle de la Rua.

At 2 PM on 19 January 1799 a British merchant convoy consisting of four ships and three brigs sailed from Gibraltar escorted by a 74-gun ship of the line and an 18-gun brig of the Royal Navy. As they left Gibraltar, three gunboats accompanied them out of the bay to defend them against the Spanish gunboats based in Algeciras. Fourteen of them and a místico under Lieutenant Francisco Antonio Murelle de la Rua sailed an hour later to intercept the convoy, forming a line of battle, while four remained in reserve and two were dispatched to Punta Europa to attack the rear of the convoy.

After several hours of harassment, at 7:30 PM, Mourelle managed to cut off a ship and two brigs from the rest of the convoy. The three British gunboats immediately came to their assistance. One of the British gunboats sank and the remaining ones were captured, along with the merchant vessels. Gunfire from the British shore batteries of Punta Europa and the unexpected sally of seven boats from Gibraltar allowed one of the prizes to escape, though the Spanish were able to fend off the counterattack.


Engraving of Gibraltar as seen from the south, depicting the view as seen in 1852

Action - The British account
In the afternoon of 19 January, HMS Strombolo, a gunboat armed with one gun and under the command of Lieutenant William Davies, sailed to cover the departure of a convoy. She towed Transport 55 clear of the mole at Gibraltar and then returned to bring out another vessel. The activity drew the attention of the Spanish, who sent out a flotilla of gunboats and launches. Strombolo cast off her tow and moved to intercept the Spanish. Eight Spanish vessels surrounded her and in the exchange of fire, a Spanish cannonball holed Strombolo at the larboard bow. She rapidly filled with water so the crew abandoned her; the Spanish picked them up from the water.

The second British gunboat lost that day was HMS Wilkin, under the command of Lieutenant Henry Power. She had towed the Esther clear of the mole when the Spanish gunboats approached. She too sailed to meet them and too found herself surrounded by eight gunboats and launches. Her long gun misfired so the crew was reduced to using small arms to defend themselves. In the short engagement Wilkin lost her main topmast and mizzenmast. When the several Spanish boats came alongside, she struck her colours.

Aftermath
Shortly thereafter, the Spanish squadron entered Algeciras towing the four prizes with 120 prisoners, among them the commander of the British gunboats of Gibraltar. None of the later British countermeasures to beat the Spanish gunboats, which included the use of grapeshot from a distance, had any effect. The Spanish gunboats proved their worth in subsequent years when they defended two major merchant convoys.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_19_January_1799

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1799 - HMS Grampus (20) Store-ship, wrecked near Woolwich.


Ceres was an East Indiaman launched in 1787. She made three trips to China for the British East India Company (EIC). After the outbreak of war with France in 1793, the Admiralty, desirous of quickly building up the Royal Navy, purchased a number of commercial vessels, including nine East Indiamen, to meet the need for small two-decker fourth rates to serve as convoy escorts. The Admiralty purchased Ceres in 1795 and renamed her HMS Grampus. In 1797 the Admiralty converted her to a storeship. That year her crew participated in the Spithead and Nore mutinies. Grampus grounded in January 1799 and was destroyed.


The East Indiaman Ceres off the Spithead Depicted in Four Different Views, by Thomas Luny, 1788; Sir Max Aitken Museum, Cowes, Isle of Wight

Class and type: Fourth rate in Royal Navy service: Storeship from December 1797
Tons burthen: 1180 89⁄94 (bm)
Length:

• EIC
• • 161 ft 6 in (49.2 m) (overall)
• HMS
• • 157 ft 1 in (47.9 m) (overall)
  • 130 ft 5 3⁄4 in (39.8 m) (keel)

Beam: 41 ft 3 in (12.6 m)
Depth of hold: 15 ft 6 1⁄2 in (4.7 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement:

• Indiaman: 130
• Fourth rate: 324
• Storeship: 155

Armament:

• Indiaman: 28 x 9 & 18-pounder guns
• Fourth Rate
• • Lower deck: 28 x 18-pounder guns
  • Upper deck: 26 x 32-pounder carronades
• Storeship: Lower deck guns removed

East Indiaman
Ceres made three trips to China for the EIC.

1st voyage (1788-89)
Ceres's captain for her first voyage was Captain Thomas Price. He sailed her for the coast of India and China, leaving Portsmouth on 5 April 1788. She reached Madras on 15 July, and Whampoa on 2 October. On the return leg of her voyage, she crossed the Second Bar on 14 December. She reached Saint Helena on 9 April 1789 and Long Reach on 2 June. Other accounts have her returning to her moorings on 1 September 1789. In either case, Price died on 20 June.

2nd voyage (1790-1791)
Ceres's captain for her second voyage was Captain George Stevens. He too sailed her for the Indian coast and China, leaving Torbay on 6 March 1790. She reached Madras on 22 June, and Negapatam on 29 July. Two days later she was back at Madras. She then reached Whampoa on 11 October. She crossed the Second Bar on 20 January 1791, and then stopped at Macao on 17 March. She reached St Helena on 3 July, and Long Reach on 1 September.

3rd voyage (1793-94)
George Stevens was again captain of Ceres for her third voyage. She left Portsmouth on 21 May 1793, after war with France had begun on 1 February. The EIC arranged for her to sail under a letter of marque, issued to Stevens, and dated 22 April 1793. Ceres was part of a convoy that also included the East Indiamen Prince William, Lord Thurlow, William Pitt, Barwell, Earl of Oxford, Osterley, Fort William, London, Glatton, Houghton, Marquis of Landsdown, Hillsborough, Pigot, and Earl of Abergavenny, amongst numerous other vessels, merchant and military, most of the non-Indiamen travelling to the Mediterranean.

On 24 June 1793 the fleet of Indiamen captured the French brig Franc; the crew of Ceres took possession. On 10 November Ceres reached Manila. Then on 20 December she arrived at Whampoa. At Whampoa that December were several other East Indiamen, among which were several that on their return to Britain the Admiralty would purchase: Warley, Royal Charlotte, Earl of Abergavenny, and Hindostan. The British Government had chartered Hindostan to take Lord Macartney to China in an unsuccessful attempt to open diplomatic and commercial relations with the Chinese empire.

For her return trip, Ceres crossed the Second Bar on 18 February 1794 and stopped at Macao on 16 March. She reached St Helena on 18 June, and Long Reach on 10 September.

Royal Navy service
The Admiralty purchased Ceres and commissioned her as HMS Grampus in December under Captain Alexander Christie, for the North Sea. (There was already a frigate Ceres in the Royal Navy, and a previous fourth-rate Grampus had just been sold for breaking up.) The new Grampus was commissioned on 9 March 1795. She then spent some two months with Perry at Blackwall being coppered. In September 1795 Captain John Williamson took command, and in March 1796 he sailed her for Jamaica.

Grampus shared with five other naval vessels in the prize money arising out of the capture on 1 April of the French privateer Alexander, and the salvage money from the recapture of her prize, the Portuguese vessel Nostra Signora del Monte del Carmo. Alexander was armed with ten guns and had a crew of 65 men under the command of M. Petre Edite. She was ten days out of Nantz and the capture took place at 37°11′N 18°16′W. Later, the Royal Navy purchased the privateer and took her into service as HMS Alexander.

In May, Grampus was among the vessels that took part in the campaign to capture Saint Lucia under Rear Admiral Hugh Cloberry Christian and General Ralph Abercromby.

See also: Transport vessels for the British expedition to the West Indies (1795)
In September Grampus returned to Britain and was paid off. Two months later she was at Sheerness being fitted as a storeship. Lieutenant Charles Carne recommissioned her in December, with the refitting lasting until February 1797.

Mutiny
In April and May the Spithead and Nore mutinies broke out. Grampus was one of the vessels caught up in the disorder, and is named in the proclamation read out on 10 June. The exact date of her arrival at Sheerness, the date of her joining the mutiny, and the date of her crew returning to duty are not known. Still, she was at Sheerness by 16 May. At the time, Grampus was preparing for a voyage to the West Indies. After the reading of the Proclamation on 10 June, the crews of a number of vessels sought to abandon the mutiny. On Grampus a fight broke out between loyalists and mutineers, a fight that the mutineer faction won. Under some reports, the mutineers abandoned her.

The mutineers on the various vessels involved found Grampus particularly useful because as a storeship, stocked for a voyage, she was able to provide them with supplies. Still, after the reading of the proclamation the mutiny collapsed and by mid-June Grampus had returned to Royal Navy control. After the end of the mutiny, five men from Grampus were sentenced to death. Another account reports that three men were condemned to death and two were confined to solitary cells. Grampus then sailed for Jamaica in August.

Return to service
In Jamaica, Admiral Hyde Parker, the commander of the station, was concerned that Grampus had brought a disaffected crew that could spread mutiny there too. He identified one agitator, whom he had hanged. By 1798 Grampus was under the command of Captain George Hart, serving as a transport.

Fate
On the morning of 19 January 1799, Grampus was in the Thames and under the command of Captain John Hall. She weighed at 7a.m., and took a pilot, Sammuel Richardson, on board. Nevertheless, by 9a.m. she had grounded on the Barking Shelf. She could not be refloated and so for the next three days work went on to remove her stores, her masts, and whatever else could be salvaged. On 21 January the decision was made to abandon her as by then she had 20 feet of water in her hold. The subsequent court martial absolved Captain Hall and his officers and crew of any responsibility, instead blaming Richardson's ignorance.

The wreck proved to be an obstacle to navigation so in April, the Commissioners of the Navy issued a call for proposals to "remove and clear the River Thames of the Wreck of His Majesty's late Ship Grampus, now on Shore on Barking-Shelf, opposite the Powder-Houses". On 12 April 1799, the wreck was set on fire and destroyed.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(1787_EIC_ship)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1816 - Estramina, originally called Extremeña, a two-masted schooner of 102 tons, wrecked


Estramina, originally called Extremeña, a two-masted schooner of 102 tons, was built at Guayaquil, in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, now in modern-day Ecuador, and launched on 13 October 1803. A Spanish Naval vessel, it was pierced for 12 guns but was armed with only four 4-pounders and carried a crew of 18. It was commanded by Lieutenant Mariano Isasbiribil, and engaged in hydrographical surveys.

On 1 October 1804 it was seized from port of Caldera in Copiapo Bay, Chile, by the armed merchant brig Harrington, Captain William Campbell, and sailed across the Pacific into Australian waters. Campbell probably believed that war between Britain and Spain, if not commenced already, was imminent. He instructed his prize crew to hide Extremeña in Jervis Bay, which is 90 miles to the south of Sydney, New South Wales whilst he sailed to Sydney in Harrington to check on the state of relations between the two countries.

When Campbell arrived in Sydney there were no reports that Britain and Spain had been at war when he had seized Extremeña. The Governor of New South Wales, Captain Philip Gidley King RN (1800–06), hearing the Spanish vessel was hiding in Jervis Bay, ordered it to be escorted to Sydney where it was detained pending instructions from the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies in London. King also wrote to the Governor of Chile to explain that Extremeña and a Spanish merchant brig St Francisco & St Paulo had been recovered. The diplomatic correspondence was dispatched on His Majesty's Colonial Cutter Integrity on 23 June 1805, but never arrived as Integrity was lost with all hands and without trace.

The Governor also reported the event to William Marsden, First Secretary to the Admiralty (1804-1807), stating that Extremeña had been under the command of Don Antonio José del Campo, which was not correct. The position of del Campo would, in the twentieth century, be called Extremeña’s executive officer.[5] His signature would have appeared on documents on board and been misinterpreted by Governor King and his advisors who had a limited knowledge of Spanish. Several authors have since copied this error.

Meanwhile, based on legal opinion, it was decided to sell Extremeña at public auction and hold the proceeds in trust until a final adjudication could be made. At the time the colonial government was in desperate need of vessels and decided to bid for the vessel itself. The auction took place on 12 June 1806 and the schooner went to the government for £2,100. It was renamed Estramina and gave excellent service for many years under government ownership. Its last commander was Joseph Ross.

The fate of Estramina was reported by the Commandant at Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, on Friday 19 January 1816, as the vessel was beating out of the harbour with a strong north-east wind and ebb tide, she was obliged to come to anchor, which unfortunately parted, and she drifted onto a sand bank, then broke up.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estramina_(1803_ship)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1824 – Launch of HMS Asia, an 84-gun Canopus class second rate ship of the line


HMS Asia was an 84-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 January 1824 at Bombay Dockyard.


Naval battle of Navarino, 20.10.1827. The castastrophe of the Ottoman - Egyptian fleet (detail).

Class and type: Canopus-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 2289 bm
Length: 193 ft 10 in (59.08 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 52 ft 4.5 in (15.964 m)
Depth of hold: 22 ft 6 in (6.86 m)
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:

• 84 guns:
• Gundeck: 28 × 32-pounders, 2 × 68-pounder carronades
• Upper gundeck: 32 × 24-pounders
• Quarterdeck: 6 × 24-pounders, 10 × 32-pounder carronades
• Forecastle: 2 × 24-pounders, 4 × 32-pounder carronades

Sternview of HMS Asia made by Edward William Cooke (1811-1880)


Scale: 1:16. A sectional model depicting the circular stern for Canopus Class second rate vessels. The model is made entirely of wood, with the outboard painted black and the traditional yellow buff stripes along the gun decks, which carry on round the stern and onto the galleries. The lower part of the stern is painted brown to indicate copper sheaving. There are twelve gun ports, all of which are painted red internally. The upper and lower stern galleries all run into one with the quarter galleries and comprise of a series of dummy as well as framed glass panels, and individual sliding sash doors, some of which are working. On the lower stern galleries moulded columns are painted on raised pillars between each stern gallery window. The stern post is fitted together with two small brass eyes to take the rudder, which unfortunately is missing. Internally the model comprises of three decks supported by deck beams and shelves, all of which are painted a light brown colour. The underside of the decks and beams are painted white. The lower of the decks is fitted to a solid waterline base, with the interior hull and ceiling planking painted the same colour as the decks. The poop deck is fitted with a raise taffrail and bulwark rail complete with ports for guns and access. On the starboard stern quarter at the upper gun deck the model inscribed "Canopus Class" and on the lower deck "Original After-Port" is hand painted. There is an accompanying original metal display plaque painted black and inscribed "CIRCULAR STERN, of ships of "Canopus" class. 84 GUNS, built by Sir Robert Sepping, between 1821-1832. S.K.No550 CL1 DIV. E.".


She was Codrington's flagship at the Battle of Navarino.

In 1858 she was converted to serve as a guardship, and during several years she was flagship of the Admiral-Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard.

In 1908 she was sold out of the navy.



Scale: 1:48. Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines, and longitudinal half-breadth for Asia (1824) and Bombay (1828), both 84-gun Second Rate, two-deckers. The body plan was taken from the captured French Second Rate Canopus (ex Le Franklin). The plan, with alterations dated 1821 to 1826, was later used for Vengeance (1824), Thunderer (1831), Monarch (1832), and Powerful (1826), all 84-gun Second Rate, two-deckers. The plan is stamped 'Chatham Dockyard, 18 December 1917', which may refer to when Ganges was altered and renamed Tenedos III.


Scale: 1: 48. Plan showing the framing profile (disposition) for Asia (1824) and Bombay (1828), both 84-gun Second Rate, two-deckers, building at Bombay Dockyard, India. The plan includes later undated alterations.


Scale 1:48. A plan showing the inboard profile, with modifications dated 1821, for 'Bombay' (1828), 'Asia' (1824), 'Powerful' (1826), 'Formidable' (1825), 'Vengeance' (1824), 'Monarch' (1832), 'Thunderer' (1831), and 'Clarence' (1827), all 84-gun Second Rate, two-deckers.


The Canopus-class ships of the line were a class of nine 84-gun two-deck second rates of the Royal Navy. Their design was based on an enlarged version of the lines of the captured French ship Franklin, since commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Canopus, although this ship herself was not included as a member of the class. The earlier ships were initially ordered as 80-gun third rates, but this classification was altered by changes in the rating system in February 1817. This class of ships is sometimes referred to as the Formidable class.

Second rates of 84 guns (two-deckers)

• Formidable class (Seppings) – lines of the Canopus (ex-French Franklin, captured at the Battle of the Nile in 1798), but structurally different; although Canopus was not considered a member of the class, the class are often known as the 'Canopus class'.
  • Formidable 84 (1825) – sold 1906
• Modified Formidable class built in teak in India
  • Ganges 84 (1821) – sold 1929
  • Asia 84 (1824) – flagship at the Battle of Navarino, 1827, sold 1908
  • Bombay 84 (1828) – converted to screw 1861, destroyed by accidental fire 1864[6]
• Further modified Formidable class built in India
  • Calcutta 84 (1831) – sold 1908
• Modified Formidable class
  • Monarch 84 (1832) – broken up 1862–66
  • Vengeance 84 (1824) – sold 1897
  • Thunderer 84 (1831) – sold 1901
  • Powerful 84 (1826) – broken up 1860–64
  • Clarence 84 (1827) – ex-Goliath, accidentally burnt in the Mersey in 1884

Scale: 1:24. Plan showing the midship section and section through an unknown Station, for Asia (1824) and later Vengeance (1824), both 84-gun Second Rate, two-decker. The plan illustrates the manner of fixing the deck beams and timbers to the sides.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Asia_(1824)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus-class_ship_of_the_line
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collec...el-293048;browseBy=vessel;vesselFacetLetter=A

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1840 - During the Exploring Expedition, USS Vincennes, commanded by Lt. Charles Wilkes, becomes the first U.S. Navy ship to reach the Antarctic Continent.


USS Vincennes (1826) was a 703-ton Boston-class sloop of war in the United States Navy from 1826 to 1865. During her service, Vincennes patrolled the Pacific, explored the Antarctic, and blockaded the Confederate Gulf coast in the Civil War. Named for the Revolutionary War Battle of Vincennes, she was the first U.S. warship to circumnavigate the globe.


19th-century painting (based on a sketch by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, USN), depicting USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, Antarctica, circa January–February 1840.

Built in Brooklyn
Vincennes—the first American ship to be so named—was one of ten sloops of war whose construction was authorized by Congresson 3 March 1825. She was laid down at New York in 1825, launched on 27 April 1826, and commissioned on 27 August 1826, with Master Commandant William Compton Bolton in command.

First world cruise
The ship set sail for the first time on 3 September 1826, from New York bound for the Pacific by way of Cape Horn. She cruised extensively in that ocean, visiting the Hawaiian islands in 1829 and made her way to Macau by 1830, under Commander William B. Finch. Her return voyage was made by way of China, the Philippines, the Indian Ocean, and the Cape of Good Hope. Ship chaplain Charles Samuel Stewart published a book about the voyage.[3] After nearly four years, Vincennes arrived back in New York on 8 June 1830, becoming the first U.S. Navy ship to circumnavigate the Earth. Two days later the ship was decommissioned.

West Indies and Guam operations
Following repairs and recommissioned, Vincennes then operated in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico as part of the West Indies Squadron in 1831–32. After a long bout of yellow fever, she was decommissioned again for a time in 1833 before sailing once more.

She departed for a second Pacific deployment in 1833, becoming the first American warship to call at Guam. She again sailed around the globe to return to the U.S. East Coast in June 1836.

Supporting the Wilkes Expedition


Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States Exploring Expedition 1838 - 1842

Decommissioned once again in 1836, while she underwent remodeling, she was refitted with a light spar deck and declared the flagship of the South Sea Surveying and Exploring Expedition to the Antarctic region.

Commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the expedition sailed from Hampton Roads in August 1838, and made surveys along the South American coast before making a brief survey of Antarctica in early 1839. Entering into the South Pacific in August and September 1839, her cartographers drafted charts of that area that are still used today.

Following survey operations and other scientific work along the west coast of South America and in the South Pacific during the rest of the year, in late 1839 Vincennes arrived at Sydney, Australia, her base for a pioneering cruise to Antarctica. She un-intentionally exposed the lack of defences and security at Sydney Harbour when she slipped un-noticed into Sydney Harbour on 30 November 1839 under the cover of darkness.[4] Between mid-January and mid-February 1840, she operated along the icy coast of the southernmost continent. The coast along which the ship sailed is today known as Wilkes Land, a name given on maps as early as 1841.

The remainder of her deployment included visits to the islands of the South Pacific, Hawaii, the Columbia River area, Puget Sound, California, Wake Island, the Philippines and South Africa.[5] This third voyage around the world ended at New York in June 1842.

1842–1847 operations
Vincennes was next assigned to the Home Squadron and placed under the command of Commander Franklin Buchanan, a distinguished officer destined to become the first Superintendent of the United States Naval Academy. She sailed to the West Indies and cruised off the Mexican coast until the summer of 1844. Though this duty proved relatively uneventful, Vincennes did rescue two grounded English brigs off the coast of Texas and received the thanks of the British government for this service. Buchanan was also ordered to prevent any attempted invasion by Mexico of the new Republic of Texas. This eventuality never materialized; and Vincennes returned to Hampton Roads on 15 August to enter dry dock.

On 4 June 1845, Vincennes sailed for the Far East under command of Captain Hiram Paulding. She was accompanied by the ship-of-the-line Columbus, under the command of Captain Thomas Wyman; and the two vessels formed a little squadron under the command of Commodore James Biddle, who carried a letter from Secretary of State John C. Calhoun to Caleb Cushing, American commissioner in China, authorizing Cushing to make the first official contact with the Japanese Government.


The Vincennes and Columbus in Japan.

The squadron sailed for Macau by way of Rio de Janeiro and the Cape of Good Hope. Commodore Biddle arrived safely in Macau only to find that Cushing had already left for home and that his successor, Alexander H. Everett, was too ill to make the trip. Therefore, Biddle determined to conduct the negotiations himself.

Accordingly, Vincennes and Columbus sailed for Japan on 7 July 1846 and anchored off Uraga on 19 July. The Japanese surrounded the vessels and allowed no one to land. Otherwise the visitors were treated with courtesy. However, Commodore Biddle's attempts to force the opening of feudal Japan to multinational trade were politely rebuffed, and the vessels weighed anchor on 29 July. Columbus returned to the United States by way of Cape Horn, but Vincennes remained on the China Station for another year before returning to New York on 1 April 1847. Here, she was decommissioned on the 9th, dry-docked, and laid up.

1849–1860 operations
Vincennes remained in ordinary until 1849. Recommissioned on 12 November 1849, she sailed from New York exactly one month later, bound for Cape Horn and the west coast of South America. On 2 July 1850, while lying off Guayaquil, Ecuador, she harbored the Ecuadoran revolutionary General Elizalde for three days during one of that country's frequent civil disturbances. Sailing on to San Francisco, California, the vessel lost 36 members of her crew to the gold fever sweeping California at the time. Turning south, Vincennes cruised off South America until late 1851, closely monitoring the activities of revolutionaries ashore.

She made a courtesy call to the Hawaiian Islands at the end of the year and proceeded thence to Puget Sound where she arrived on 2 February 1852. She anchored briefly there and returned via San Francisco and the Horn to New York where she arrived on 21 September and was decommissioned on the 24th.

Following repairs and a period in ordinary, Vincennes was recommissioned on 21 March 1853 and sailed into Norfolk, Virginia on 13 May to join her second exploratory expedition, serving as flagship to Commander Cadwalader Ringgold's survey of the China Sea, the North Pacific, and the Bering Strait. Comdr. Ringgold was a veteran of the Wilkes expedition. The squadron stood out of Norfolk on 11 June 1853, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and charted numerous islands and shoals in the Indian Ocean before arriving in China in March 1854. Here Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry relieved Ringgold for medical reasons and gave command of the expedition to Lt. John Rodgers.

Vincennes sailed on to survey the Bonin and Ladrone Islands and returned to Hong Kong in February 1855. The expedition sailed again in March and surveyed the islands between the Ryūkyū chain and Japan, and then the Kurils. Vincennes left the squadron at Petropavlovsk, Russia, and entered the Bering Strait, sailing through to the northwest towards Wrangel Island. Ice barriers prevented the vessel from reaching this destination, but she came closer than any other previous ship. Vincennes returned to San Francisco in early October and later sailed for the Horn and New York, where she arrived on 13 July 1856 to complete yet another circumnavigation of the globe.

Vincennes operated with the African Squadron in 1857–1860.

American Civil War service

A colored lithograph of the USS Vincennes

After the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Vincennes was recommissioned on 29 June and assigned to duty in the Gulf Blockading Squadron. She arrived off Fort Pickens, Florida, on 3 September, and was ordered to assist in the occupation of Head of Passes, Mississippi River, and remain there on blockade duty. Though the Federal warships did successfully deploy, on 12 October 1861 the Confederate metal-sheathed ram Manassas and armed steamers Ivy and James L. Day drove the Union blockaders from Head of Passes in the Battle of the Head of Passes, forcing the Screw sloop-of-war Richmond and Vincennes aground. Vincennes was ordered abandoned and destroyed to prevent her capture, and her engineer set a slow match to the vessel's magazine while her men took refuge on other ships. However, her engineer cut the burning fuse and threw it overboard before the magazine could explode and, after the Confederate vessels withdrew early in the afternoon, Vincennes was refloated.

After the Confederate attack, the Union sloop-of-war continued on blockade duty off the Passes of the Mississippi, capturing the blockade-running British bark Empress, aground at North East Pass with a large cargo of coffee on 27 November. On 4 March 1862, she was ordered to proceed to Pensacola, Florida, to relieve Mississippi and spent the next six months shuttling between Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama, performing routine patrol and reconnaissance duty. On 4 October, she was ordered to assume command of the blockade off Ship Island, Mississippi, and to guard the pass out of Mississippi Sound. While so deployed, boat crews from the vessel and Clifton captured the barge H. McGuin in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, on 18 July 1863. Vincennes also reported the capture of two boats laden with food on 24 December.

End-of-war service and decommissioning


Monument to USS Vincennes in Vincennes, Indiana's Patrick Henry Square

Vincennes remained off Ship Island for the duration of the war and was laid up in ordinary at the Boston Navy Yard on 28 August 1865. The veteran world traveler was decommissioned in August 1865 and sold at public auction at Boston on 5 October 1867 for approximately $5,000.00, completing a career that made her one of the Navy's most widely traveled ships.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Vincennes_(1826)

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1883 - “Cimbria” Catastrophe – the Story of the “German Titanic”

The HAPAG passenger ship SS Cimbria sank with the loss of between 389 and 437 lives (sources disagree) after colliding with the steamer Sultan ( United Kingdom) in the North Sea near Borkum Island. Between 56 and 133 people survived and were saved by Diamant and Thetis (flags unknown).



Until the “Titanic” sank in 1912, the tragedy of the Hapag steamship “Cimbria” was regarded as the largest civilian maritime disaster of all time. To this day, the catastrophe remains the biggest civilian maritime drama in German waters. The collision made headlines across the world. The story of the iron screw steamship that sank off the North Sea island of Borkum began 150 years ago. The “Cimbria,” launched on January 21, 1867, set sail from Hamburg on April 13 for its maiden voyage to New York. Sixteen years later, on January 19, 1883, came the tragic accident.

Two days earlier, it had been a cold, foggy winter morning when the “Cimbria” left the Port of Hamburg for its 70th and final voyage. Captain Julius Hansen was in command of the ship. On board were 91 crew members and 401 passengers, most of them Slovenian emigrants. The already unpleasant weather on the North Sea was only getting worse.



After the “Cimbria” sailed past the coastal town of Cuxhaven, the fog grew thicker. The captain gave the order to decrease speed. At about two hours past midnight, the lookout point on the passenger ship reported a faint green light in the fog – the position light of the collier “Sultan” from Hull. Neither ship had hardly any time to react. And, as the Maritime Court later established, both of them did precisely the wrong thing in the initial moment of panic: They turned toward each other.



No Help from the Still-Navigable “Sultan”
A few moments later, the pointed bow of the “Sultan” struck the over 100-meter-long “Cimbria” at right angles, ripping a deep hole in her port side. Huge amounts of water immediately flooded into the ship. When the “Sultan” went into reverse under full power, the outer panels of the “Cimbria” burst away. The “Sultan” then vanished into the darkness without bothering to ascertain the fate of the “Cimbria.” The captain later excused himself by saying that he had believed his ship to be much more severely damaged than the other large and unknown steamship – despite the loud screams for help emanating from it – and thus had not considered it necessary to provide any help whatsoever.
But that was a dreadful mistake. The “Cimbria” immediately began to list and then swiftly sink. Panic broke out among the passengers, who had been torn from their sleep. The crew, however, remained amazingly calm and even managed to lower three lifeboats, although one of them became overcrowded and capsized. Then, just under a quarter of an hour after the collision, the “Cimbria” sank. Thirty-nine passengers were rescued from the lifeboats, and another 17 people survived by clinging to the steamship’s masts, which were luckily sticking out of the water. Everybody else on board, more than 430 passengers and crew members, perished on that horrific night.
Among the passengers were also some people who were famous at the time. For example, Red Jacket, a 26-year-old Native American from the Sioux nation, was on board with some fellow tribesmen. After entertaining the public in Europe with their traditional songs, Red Jacket was returning home with the group, which included his wife, Sunshine, and the medicine man Crow Foot. The Rommer siblings, from the southwestern German town of Biberach, were doing the opposite. Georg (28), a zither and guitar player, and his singing sisters, Auguste (26) and Katinka (22), had made a name for themselves back home as the “Swabian songbirds,” and were now hoping to earn more money in the land of unlimited possibilities. Moritz Strauss (53), one of the biggest toy manufactures of the day, wanted to go to America to expand his business. All these hopes were doomed to failure, as it would tragically turn out.


Ship’s Bell Salvaged 90 Years after the Disaster

In 1974, the wreckage of the “Cimbria” was discovered in 25 meters of water 19 nautical miles northwest of the island of Borkum. The survey ship “Wega” started examining the wreckage that same year. Among the many things to be salvaged was the ship’s bell. It can be found these days in the entrance hall of the Ballin House in Hamburg, where it stands as a memorial to all those who have perished at sea.
The ship’s bell: Salvaged in the 1970s, these days to be found in the entrance hall of Hapag-Lloyd's headquarters Ballin House in Hamburg.
What’s more, between 2001 and 2008, divers have brought up numerous pieces of equipment and cargo goods from the wreckage, including porcelain, wine bottles and ivory. Today, the wreckage stretches over an area 115 meters long, though the ship’s structure can no longer be made out. In just a few years, the already heavily decayed wreckage of the “Cimbria” will disintegrate completely and disappear.



Artefacts of the Cimbria


https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbria_(Schiff)
https://www.watthanse.de/untergang_der_cimbria/
https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/news...he-story-of-the-german-titanic-began-150.html

 

[Uwek]

Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1941 – World War II: HMS Greyhound and other escorts of convoy AS-12 sink Italian submarine Neghelli with all hands 40 miles northeast of Falkonera.


Italian submarine Neghelli was an Adua-class submarine built for the Royal Italian Navy (Regia Marina) during the 1930s. It was named after a town of Negele in Ethiopia.


RIN Neghelli

Design and description
The Adua-class submarines were essentially repeats of the preceding Perla class. They displaced 680 metric tons (670 long tons) surfaced and 844 metric tons (831 long tons) submerged. The submarines were 60.18 meters (197 ft 5 in) long, had a beam of 6.45 meters (21 ft 2 in) and a draft of 4.7 meters (15 ft 5 in).

For surface running, the boats were powered by two 600-brake-horsepower (447 kW) diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 400-horsepower (298 kW) electric motor. They could reach 14 knots(26 km/h; 16 mph) on the surface and 7.5 knots (13.9 km/h; 8.6 mph) underwater. On the surface, the Adua class had a range of 3,180 nautical miles (5,890 km; 3,660 mi) at 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph), submerged, they had a range of 74 nmi (137 km; 85 mi) at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph).

The boats were armed with six internal 53.3 cm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes, four in the bow and two in the stern. They were also armed with one 100 mm (4 in) deck gun for combat on the surface. The light anti-aircraft armament consisted of one or two pairs of 13.2 mm (0.52 in) machine guns.

Construction and career
Neghelli was launched on 7 November 1937 in OTO's shipyard in La Spezia and commissioned on 28 February 1938. After an endurance training in the Dodecanese, Neghelli was assigned to Leros. In May of 1940 she was reassigned to 15th Squadron (I Submarine Group) based at La Spezia. Her commander at the time was Carlo Ferracuti.

At the outbreak of hostilities she immediately was sent on a mission to the west part of the Gulf of Genoa and returned on June 14, 1940 without encountering any enemy traffic.

On August 1, 1940 Neghelli together with Scirè, Argo, Turchese, Medusa (later replaced by Luciano Manara), Axum and Diasprowas sent to form a barrier north of Cape Bougaroun following departure from Gibraltar of the British Force H. There were ongoing British operations "Crush" and "Hurry" in progress at this time. Italian submarines stayed on patrol until August 9, however, Force H passed north of the area patrolled by Italian submarines, and they were not able to detect it. On August 5, 1940 at approximately 18:50 Neghelli, while located west of Asinara, was attacked by an enemy submarine. Neghelli managed to avoid two torpedoes by maneuvering.

In December 1940 she was sent on a new mission to patrol an area 45 miles north of Marsa Matruh until Christmas. Two more submarines, Naiade and Narvalo, were also deployed in the same area to intercept British naval forces sent to attack Italian ports on the coast of Cyrenaica.

On December 13, 1940, at 20:22 while patrolling on the surface in an area 45 miles north of Marsa Matruh in the position 32°37′N 26°44′E, she sighted a British cruiser thought to be HMS Southampton. Neghelli closed in and at 20:36 fired a spread of four torpedoes, stayed on the surface to observe the results. One torpedo hit the target, which turned out to be HMS Coventry. The cruiser opened fire in the direction of the submarine, forcing her to dive and move away. HMS Coventry was damaged and was forced to return to Alexandria for repairs which lasted until January 20, 1941, and didn't return to action until late March 1941.

Neghelli's heroics were reported in the war bulletin no. 191 of December 15, 1940, claiming the sinking of the British cruiser. Captain Ferracuti was decorated with a Silver Medal of Military Valor for this attack.

On January 14, 1941 Neghelli departed from Leros for an offensive mission targeting traffic in and out of Piraeus. No news were heard from her since the departure. From the British documents released after the war, it appears that on January 19, 1941 Neghelli first attacked Greek destroyer Psara early in the morning, then at 11:53 she attacked British convoy AS-12 heading from Piraeus to Alexandria. Convoy AS-12 was composed of steamers Clan Cumming, Clan MacDonald and Empire Song escorted by the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Calcutta, destroyers HMS Greyhound, HMS Janus, and HMS Defender. One of Neghelli 's torpedoes struck the steamer Clan Cumming (7264 GRT) in the position 37°15′N 24°04′E, near the San Giorgio island, causing serious damage and forcing her to return to Piraeus escorted by HMS Janus. The remaining destroyers counterattacked with depth charges, and finally HMS Greyhound was able to hit the submarine who sunk with all hands 40 miles northeast of Falkonera. Captain Ferracuti, 4 officers and 41 sailors died in the sinking.


HMS Greyhound was a G-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the 1930s. Greyhound participated in the Norwegian Campaign in April 1940, the Dunkirk evacuation in May and the Battle of Dakar in September before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November. The ship generally escorted the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet as they protected convoys against attacks from the Italian Fleet. She sank two Italian submarines while escorting convoys herself in early 1941. Greyhound was sunk by German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers north-west of Crete on 22 May 1941 as she escorted the battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet attempting to intercept the German sea-borne invasion forces destined for Crete.


Greyhound during World War II


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Greyhound_(H05)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_submarine_Neghelli

 

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Today in Naval History - Naval / Maritime Events in History
19 January 1942 - German submarine U-66 sank RMS Lady Hawkins in the North Atlantic, killing 251 of the 322 people aboard.


RMS Lady Hawkins was a steam turbine ocean liner. She was one of a class of five sister ships popularly known as "Lady Boats" that Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England built in 1928 and 1929 for the Canadian National Steamship Company (CNS). The five vessels were Royal Mail Ships that CN operated from Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Caribbean via Bermuda. In 1942 the German submarine U-66 sank Lady Hawkins in the North Atlantic, killing 251 of the 322 people aboard.



Building and peacetime service
Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, on the Wirral in England built all five Lady-liners, and completed Lady Hawkins in November 1928.

Lady Hawkins was an oil-burner, with a set of four Cammell Laird steam turbines driving the propeller shafts to her twin screws by single-reduction gearing. She had three passenger decks, and by 1931 she was equipped with a direction finding device.

CN introduced the liners which became known as "Lady Boats" for mail, freight and passenger traffic between Canada, Bermuda and the Caribbean. The company wanted to develop Canadian exports including lumber, and imports to Canada including fruit, sugar and molasses. Each Lady-liner had refrigerated holds for perishable cargo such as fruit, and capacity for 100,000 bunches of bananas. Their hulls were painted white, which then was a relatively new fashion among shipping companies, and confined largely to passenger ships serving tropical or sub-tropical destinations.

Lady Drake, Lady Hawkins and Lady Nelson sailed fortnightly between Halifax and British Guiana via Boston, Bermuda, the Leeward Islands, the Windward Islands and Barbados. In summer the route was extended to the Montreal. CN named each of its five new liners after the wife of an English or British admiral who was noted for his actions in the Caribbean, and who had been knighted or ennobled. Lady Hawkins was named after Lady Katherine, the wife of the Elizabethan Admiral Sir John Hawkins (1532–95).



War service and loss
In January 1942 Lady Hawkins sailed from Montreal for Bermuda and the Caribbean. She called at Halifax and Boston, and by the time she left Boston she was carrying 2,908 tons of general cargo and 213 passengers as well as her complement of 107 officers, crew and DEMS gunners. At least 53 of her passengers were Royal Navy and RNVR personnel, and at least another 55 were civilians, including at least 15 from the British West Indies and four from the USA.

On the morning of 19 January 1942 the ship was sailing unescorted about 150 nautical miles (280 km) off Cape Hatteras, taking a zigzag course to make her more difficult to hit, when at 0743 hrs U-66 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Robert-Richard Zapp hit her with two stern-launched torpedoes. The liner sank in about 30 minutes.

Three of her six lifeboats were damaged, but the other three were launched. One was commanded by her Chief Officer. It had capacity for 63 people but managed to embark 76 survivors. Its occupants could hear more people in the water, but could neither see them in the dark nor take them aboard the overcrowded boat if they had found them.

The boat had no radio transmitter and very limited rations of drinking water, ship's biscuit and condensed milk. It shipped water and needed constant baling, but it had a mast, sail and oars and Chief Officer Percy Kelly set a course west toward the USA's Atlantic coast sea lanes and land. The boat was at sea for five days, in which time five of its occupants died. Then the survivors sighted the US Army troopship USAT Coamo and signalled her with a flashlight. Coamo's Master misread the flashes as an enemy submarine preparing to attack, and was going to continue without stopping. It was only when the survivors shone the light on the boat's sail that he correctly understood their signal. Coamo rescued the boat's 71 surviving occupants, landing them at San Juan, Puerto Rico on 28 January.

Of the three lifeboats launched, only Chief Officer Kelly's was found. Including the five who died in that boat, a total of 251 people from Lady Hawkins were lost. They were the ship's master Captain Huntley Giffen, 85 other members of the crew, one DEMS gunner and 164 of her passengers, two of whom were Distressed British Seamen (i.e. survivors from previous sinkings). The 71 survivors whom Coamorescued were Percy Kelly, 21 crew and 49 passengers.

RMS Lady Drake
Soon after Lady Hawkins' sinking, Kelly was promoted to Captain and made Master of one of her sister ships, Lady Drake. On 5 May 1942 U-106 sank Lady Drake about 90 nautical miles (170 km) north of Bermuda, killing six passengers and six crew. Kelly, 141 passengers and 113 of his crew survived and were rescued by the US Navy minesweeper USS Owl, which landed them on Bermuda.

Awards
On 27 October 1942 two of Lady Hawkins' Able Seamen, Ernest Rice and Clarence Squires, were commended in Naval citations. On 22 December 1942 Captain Kelly was awarded the MBE for his leadership in saving lives from Lady Hawkins. He was also awarded Lloyd's War Medal for Bravery at Sea.


German submarine U-66 was a Type IXC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The submarine was laid down on 20 March 1940 at the AG Weser yard at Bremen, launched on 10 October and commissioned on 2 January 1941 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Richard Zapp as part of the 2nd U-boat Flotilla.


U-66 rendevoused with U-117 on 7 August 1943 for fuel, provisions and medical aid. While alongside the pair was attacked by aircraft of the USS Card. U-117 was sunk and U-66 escaped.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lady_Hawkins
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lady_Hawkins
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-66_(1940)