HMS Capelin (1804)

Last updated

History
Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
NameHMS Capelin
Ordered23 June 1803
BuilderGoodrich & Co. (prime contractor), Bermuda
Laid down1803
Launched1804
FateWrecked 30 June 1808
General characteristics [1]
Type Ballahoo-class schooner
Tons burthen7041⁄94 (bm)
Length
  • 55 ft 2 in (16.8 m) (overall)
  • 40 ft 10+1⁄2 in (12.5 m) (keel)
Beam18 ft 0 in (5.5 m)
Depth of hold9 ft 0 in (2.7 m)
Sail plan Schooner
Complement20
Armament4 x 12-pounder carronades

HMS Capelin was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner carrying four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Like many of her class and the related Cuckoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

Contents

Career

In May 1804 she was commissioned under Lieutenant Archibald McDonald (or M'Donald; acting) for the Halifax station. [1] On 20 December 1806 he faced a court martial for his conduct after Capelin had run aground while under his command. The court decided that the charge was partly proven and so reprimanded him. It also ruled that he forfeit all seniority on the lieutenants' list. Still, McDonald was promoted to lieutenant on 22 December 1806 and commanded Capelin until February 1807. [2] [3] At some point, possibly in 1806, Lieutenant J. Beckett may have commanded her for a short period. [4]

In 1807 Capelin was off Le Havre and under Lieutenant Thomas Delafons. On 11 August the ship Georgetown and the brig Robert arrived in Malta. A Spanish privateer had captured them off Sicilly, but Capelin had retaken them. [5]

Lieutenant Josias Bray replaced Delafons and took command on 13 January 1808. [1]

Fate

On 25 January Capelin was in company with Champion and Sybille when Sybille captured the Grand Argus. [6] Capellin was reconnoitering the harbour at Brest, France when she hit the sunken Parquette Rock at 7am on 30 June. [7] Whiting, the hired armed cutter Adrian and the cutter Entreprenante all tried to get her off. [8] However, no sooner had Entreprenante succeeded than water gushed in, causing Capelin to sink quickly, stern first. The vessels in attendance saved her crew. [9] The subsequent court martial for the loss of Capelin reprimanded Bray for not being on deck when she approached the harbour. [8] The court martial board also reprimanded Gunner's Mate Thomas Cole, who had been in charge of the watch, for not calling Bray when the haze had caused him to lose sight of the light at Pointe de Sainte Matthieu. [8]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Winfield (2008), p. 359.
  2. ↑ O'Byrne (1849), p.693.
  3. ↑ Naval Chronicle, Vol. 16 (1806), p.514.
  4. ↑ "NMM, vessel ID 381825" (PDF). Warship Histories, vol v. National Maritime Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 August 2011. Retrieved 30 July 2011.
  5. ↑ Lloyd's List, - accessed 25 November 2013.
  6. ↑ "No. 16228". The London Gazette . 11 February 1809. p. 197.
  7. ↑ Gosset (1986), p. 66.
  8. 1 2 3 Hepper (1994), p. 124.
  9. ↑ Grocott (1997), p. 258.

Related Research Articles

Vénus was a corvette of the French Navy that the British captured in 1800. Renamed HMS Scout, she served briefly in the Channel before being wrecked in 1801, a few days after taking a major prize.

HMS Advice was a 10-gun cutter that the Royal Navy purchased in 1779. She was wrecked in 1793.

HMS <i>Ferret</i> (1806) Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop

HMS Ferret was a Royal Navy Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by Benjamin Tanner at Dartmouth and launched in 1806, 19 months late. She served on the Jamaica, Halifax, and Leith stations during which time she took three privateers as prizes before she was wrecked in 1813.

HMS Barracouta was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Like many of her class and the related Cuckoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Grouper was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. Grouper was wrecked off Guadeloupe in 1811. This schooner was the only Royal Navy ship ever to use the name.

HMS Chub was a British Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1807. She and her crew were lost when she was wrecked in August 1812.

HMS Snapper was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. She cruised for some seven years, sharing in several captures of merchant vessels and taking some herself, before a French privateer captured her.

HMS <i>Haddock</i> (1805) UK naval schooner 1805–1809

HMS Haddock was a Royal Navy schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1805.

On Thursday 21st inst launched off the stocks at Mr Isaac Skinner's shipyard his Majesty's Schooner "Haddock". The above schooner is said to be the completest vessel ever built in Bermuda

HMS Crane was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by Custance & Stone at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Pigeon was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner. Custance & Stone built and launched her at Great Yarmouth in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Widgeon was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner built by William Wheaton at Brixham and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Sealark was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by William Wheaton at Brixham and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

HMS Whiting was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1805. She was a participant at the Battle of Basque Roads. A French privateer captured her at the beginning of the War of 1812, shortly after the Americans had captured and released her in the first naval incident of the war.

HMS <i>Alacrity</i> (1806) Brig-sloop of the Royal Navy

HMS Alacrity was a Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by William Rowe at Newcastle and launched in 1806. She served in the Baltic and was at the capture of Copenhagen in 1807. She captured a large privateer before herself falling victim to a French man-of-war in 1811 in an action in which her captain failed to distinguish himself. She then served in the French navy until she was broken up in 1822.

HMS Pigeon was the mercantile Fanny which the Admiralty purchased on 28 May 1805 for use as a despatch cutter. She was wrecked, though without loss of life, in November.

HMS <i>Entreprenante</i> (1799) Cutter of the Royal Navy

HMS Entreprenante, was a 10-gun cutter that the Royal Navy captured from the French in 1798. The British commissioned her in 1799 and she served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, participating in the Battle of Trafalgar. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. She took part in several small engagements, capturing Spanish and French ships before she was sold in 1812 for breaking up.

HMS <i>Redbridge</i> (1798) British schooner-rigged gunboat

HMS Redbridge was one of four schooner-rigged gunboats built to an experimental design by Sir Samuel Bentham. Her launch date is unknown, but the Admiralty purchased her in April 1798. She had a short, relatively uneventful career before the French captured her in 1803. The French Navy sold her in January 1814.

French schooner <i>Impériale</i> (1805)

The French schooner Impériale was a 3-gun mercantile schooner-aviso of the French Navy commissioned at Guadeloupe on 23 September 1805. The Royal Navy captured her on 24 May 1806 and named her HMS Vigilant. The Navy renamed her HMS Subtle on 20 November 1806. She wrecked at Bermuda on 20 October 1807.

Two vessels named His Majesty's Hired armed cutter Adrian served the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars as hired armed vessels.

HMS Plumper was launched in 1807. She captured three small American privateers early in the War of 1812 but was wrecked in December 1812.

References

This article includes data released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported UK: England & Wales Licence, by the National Maritime Museum, as part of the Warship Histories project.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.