HCS Strombolo (1793)

Last updated

History
Flag of the British East India Company (1801).svg British East India Company
Builder Bombay Dockyard
Launched1793
FateFoundered 1809
General characteristics [1] [2]
Tons burthen68 (bm)
Sail plan Ketch
Armament12 × 3-pounder guns

HCS Strombolo was a 12-gun ketch of the Bombay Marine launched at the Bombay Dockyard in 1793. [3] She later became a floating battery at Salsette Harbour, having been condemned as unseaworthy. Still, she was pressed into service and sailed from Bombay in 1809 as part of the Persian Gulf campaign of 1809. She foundered on 18 September or 15 October between Bombay and Gujarat while under tow by the sloop-of-war HCS Mornington. Strombolo's bottom dropped out and she sank quickly, taking with her all her stores and most of her officers and crew. Boats from Morington succeeded in rescuing her commander Lieutenant Hall, and 16 crew members; the rest drowned. [4] Another report gives the loss of lives as 2 officers and 14 men. [5]

Citations

  1. Phipps (1840), p. 164.
  2. Wadia (1986), p. 335.
  3. Hackman (2001), p. 341.
  4. "POSTSCRIPT". Trewman's Exeter Flying Post or Plymouth and Cornish Advertiser (Exeter, England), 31 May 1810; Issue 2330.
  5. "East Indies". The Morning Chronicle. No. 12804. 24 May 1810.

References