HMS Utile (1799)

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History
Civil and Naval Ensign of France.svg France
NameUtile
BuilderBordeaux
Launched1799
CapturedApril 1799
Naval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svgGreat Britain
NameHMS Utile
Acquired1799 by capture
CommissionedSeptember 1801
FateFoundered November 1801
General characteristics [1]
Tons burthen
  • c.250 [2]
  • 27888⁄94 (bm)
Length
  • Overall:89 ft 6 in (27.3 m)
  • Keel:74 ft 0+1⁄2 in (22.6 m)
Beam26 ft 7 in (8.1 m)
Depth of hold12 ft 10 in (3.9 m)
Sail plan Brig-sloop
Complement
  • French:120 [3]
  • Royal Navy:76
Armament

HMS Utile was the French 16-gun privateer brig-sloop Utile launched in 1799 that the Royal Navy captured in 1799 and took into service; she foundered in the Mediterranean in 1801.

Utile was launched in 1799 and fitted at Bordeaux. [1]

On 1 April 1799, Boadicea captured the brig Utile. Utile was armed with sixteen 8-pounder guns, of which ten were brass. She had a crew of 120 men and was three weeks out of Bordeaux. [3]

Boadicea sent Utile into Portsmouth, where she arrived on 11 April. She sat there until May to October 1801, when she underwent fitting. Commander Edward Jekyll Canes commissioned her in September 1801 for the Mediterranean. [1]

Canes sailed from Portsmouth on the 20 October 1801 for the Mediterranean with details of the preliminaries of the peace treaty. Utile sailed from Gibraltar on 5 November with £27,000 for the payment of the garrison at Minorca. [4] She was never seen again and was presumed to have foundered with all hands. [5]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 Winfield (2008), p. 287.
  2. ↑ Demerliac (2004), p. 251, n°2156.
  3. 1 2 3 "No. 15123". The London Gazette . 9 April 1799. p. 335.
  4. ↑ Naval Chronicle, Vol. 7, pp.172-3.
  5. ↑ Hepper (1994), p. 100.

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References

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