HMS Boadicea (1797)
HMS Boadicea was a frigate in the time of the sailing ships , which was used in the Mauritius campaign and which set a literary monument to Patrick O'Brian . It was named after the British Queen Boadicea , who led an uprising against Rome .
Construction and construction
The HMS Boadicea was ordered by the Royal Navy on April 30, 1795 . She belonged to a group of frigates , which were ordered on the basis of French ships to equip the Royal Navy with powerful frigates. The lines of the French 40-gun frigate Imperieuse by Joseph-Marie-Blaise Coulomb were used as a model. Edward Hunt made an adaptation to British requirements and further development. The Adams shipyard in Bucklers Hard took over the construction, where the keel of the Boadicea was laid in September 1795 . It was launched on April 12, 1797 and first sailed on September 9, 1797. The Boadicea was the only ship launched according to these plans. The length is given as 45.26 m, while the width should have been 12.18 m. The draft should have been about 3.86 m. The crew was 284 men.
Armament
Although the ship is said to have belonged to the 38-cannon frigate class, the HMS Boadicea carried far more cannons: On the battery deck, the Boadicea is said to have carried 28 18-pounder cannons. Ten 9-pounder cannons and eight 32-pounder carronades are said to have been set up on the upper deck , with which the Boadicea carried a total of 46 heavy artillery pieces. The misunderstanding regarding the number of cannons is due to the fact that the carronades were not counted, as they were only used in close combat.
commitment
The HMS Boadicea entered service under the command of Captain Richard Goodwin Keats and served in the Canal Fleet for the first few years. On August 14, 1797, she captured the Spanish ship Union with 22 cannons. In 1801 under the command of Captain Charles Rowley , she was the flagship of a small squadron off the Atlantic coast of France and Spain . From 1803 under the command of Captain John Maitland she sailed under the command of the Canal Fleet. In 1805 she helped four French ships of the line under the command of Admiral Dumanoir - which escaped in the Battle of Trafalgar - to conquer. In 1806 she protected whaling ships, in 1807 she was used off Ireland .
In 1808 Captain John Hatley sailed from Portsmouth to the Cape of Good Hope , where she took part in the Mauritius campaign. In 1810 Commodore Josias Rowley took command of HMS Boadicea , while Captain John Hatley sailed back to the United Kingdom with HMS Raisonnable . She then took part in the conquest of Réunion and, after the naval battle of Grand Port, took the HMS Africaine back from the French on September 3, 1810. On September 17, 1810, the HMS Boadicea recaptured both the HMS Ceylon - and its conqueror, the French frigate Venus . She then served in the conquest of Mauritius before Captain Josias Rowley was allowed to bring the news of victory to England with her.
The Boadicea was used until the end of the war. The ship was disarmed and part of the reserve by 1824, before being sent to India from 1824 to 1827 . Then she was reassigned to the reserve.
End of service
In 1854 the Boadicea became the Hulk and in 1858 it was scrapped.
See also
- for other ships with the same name, see HMS Boadicea
Individual evidence
- ^ Michael Phillips' ships of the Old Navy http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/info.php?ref=0352
- ↑ Mission history of the HMS Boadicea (English, accessed on August 7, 2009)
further reading
Robert Gardiner: Heavy Frigate I - 18-pounder Frigates , Anova Chrysalis Books, 1994, p. 37ff (= Conway's Ship Types ). ISBN 0-85177-627-2