| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nineteen ships of the French Navy have borne the name Hercule, in honour of the Roman hero Hercules:
The French Navy, informally "La Royale", is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces. Dating back to 1624, the French Navy is one of the world's oldest naval forces. It has participated in conflicts around the globe and played a key part in establishing the French colonial empire.
Hercules is a Roman hero and god. He was the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, who was the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures.
- Hercule (1657–1673), a 38-gun ship of the line
- Soleil (1642–1672), a 36-gun ship of the line rename Hercule in 1671
- Hercule (1673–1678), a 50-gun ship of the line
- Hercule (1679–1704), a 30-gun ship of the line
- Hercule (1705–1741), a 64-gun ship of the line
- Hercule (1750–1760), a 66-gun ship of the line
- Hercule (1779), a fluyt
- Hercule (1779–1797), a 74-gun
- Hercule (1798–1798), a bomb vessel
- Hercule (1798), a Téméraire-class ship of the line
- Hercule (1800), a brig
- Hercule (1804–1815), a bomb vessel
- Provence (1815–1883), an 80-gun ship of the line, was renamed Hercule in 1815
- Hercule (1836–1860), a 100-gun ship of the line
- Hercule (1893–1944), a tugboat
- Hercule (1914–1918), an auxiliary minesweeper
- Hercule (1939–1944), an auxiliary tugboat of the FNFL
- Hercule (1945–1951), a tugboat
- Hercule (1960–1993), a tugboat
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through to the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside firepower to bear. Since these engagements were almost invariably won by the heaviest ships carrying the most powerful guns, the natural progression was to build sailing vessels that were the largest and most powerful of their time.
The Soleil was a 38-gun ship of the line of the French Royal Navy, designed by Deviot and constructed by the Dutch shipwright Jan Gron at the new state dockyard at Île d'Indret near Nantes. She and her sister Lune were two-deckers, with a mixture of bronze guns on both gun decks.
A fluyt is a Dutch type of sailing vessel originally designed by the shipwrights of Hoorn as a dedicated cargo vessel. Originating in the Dutch Republic in the 16th century, the vessel was designed to facilitate transoceanic delivery with the maximum of space and crew efficiency. Unlike rivals, it was not built for conversion in wartime to a warship, so it was cheaper to build and carried twice the cargo, and could be handled by a smaller crew. Construction by specialized shipyards using new tools made it half the cost of rival ships. These factors combined to sharply lower the cost of transportation for Dutch merchants, giving them a major competitive advantage. The fluyt was a significant factor in the 17th-century rise of the Dutch seaborne empire. In 1670 the Dutch merchant marine totalled 568,000 tons of shipping—about half the European total.
  | This article includes a list of ships with the same or similar names. If an internal link for a specific ship led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended ship article, if one exists. |
