List of major marine casualties in the 18th century

The list of serious marine casualties in the 18th century includes maritime accidents in which there was loss of life or extensive property damage.

Ship accidents between 1701 and 1800

date	Surname	dead	Course of events
November 26, 1703	Big storm	2500	Twelve Royal Navy warships and an unknown number of merchant ships sank on the English coast during a particularly violent storm that went down in history as the "Great Storm" . Over 1,500 Royal Navy seamen and probably many 100, if not over 1,000 merchant ship sailors died.
1706	Kron-Printzen	820	The Danish slave ship Kron-Printzen sank in a storm with 820 slaves on board.
October 22, 1707	Royal Navy Fleet Association	1,450	Four of the 21 ships in a British fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell en route from Gibraltar to Great Britain ran aground on the cliffs of the Isles of Scilly west of Cornwall on October 22 at around 7.30 p.m. All four leaked and sank within a few hours with the entire crew. There were 1,450 deaths. The cause is an inadequate position determination and ignorance of the longitude , the fleet thought it was far from the cliffs in the English Channel , but incorrect maps and navigation tables are now also accepted.
August 22, 1711/23. August 1711	British Quebec Expedition	884	A naval force of the British Royal Navy commanded by Rear Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker invaded the Saint Lawrence River with 15 warships and other troop transports to attack Québec , the capital of French Canada . Because of bad weather and insufficient knowledge of the fairway, eight troop transports ran aground on August 22nd and 23rd. Of the approximately 1,400 soldiers and seamen on board, 884 drowned and the attack had to be stopped.
April 25, 1715	Princess Hedvig Sophia	0	After a lost naval battle against a Danish naval association, their own crew agitated the Swedish liner Prinsessean Hedvig Sophia in the Kiel Fjord off Strande in order to withdraw it from Danish access and gave it up.
July 31, 1715	Sinking of the silver fleet	1,250	A Spanish silver fleet consisting of eleven ships with a valuable cargo consisting of around 7 million eight-real silver coins, gold and silver in bars as well as precious stones and other valuable trade goods from East Asia and America, was hit by a hurricane on the coast on its way to Spain Florida's drifted near Fort Pierce and battered by the surf. Not a single one of the Spanish ships escaped destruction, only the French El Grifon accompanying the fleet managed to escape. Almost half of the 2,000 people on board the ships died in the worst shipping disaster in Spain's history, apart from the losses in the Armada . A major reason for the disaster was a departure from Havana that was delayed by the bureaucracy of the colonial authorities , which is why the fleet got into hurricane season. In addition, the ships were overloaded and their seaworthiness was limited due to the long stay in tropical waters.
June 13, 1722	16 ships	hundreds	Since June 13, 1722, a heavy storm raged in the area around the Cape of Good Hope . Until June 17, the VOC ships Amstelveen and Samson went down at sea ; the ships Blijnburg, 't Raadhuis van Middelburg,' t Huys te Foreest and Rijnstein were missing. In Table Bay itself, all the ships were torn from their anchors and driven onto the bank: the VOC ships Lakenman , Rotterdam , Standvastigheid , Zoetigheid and the Huker Gouda , a Scottish smuggler, the brigantine Amy and the three English East Indiamans, Candos , coming from Calicut, Addison from Bengal, Nigtingala from England. Of the ships sunk in the bay, only 260 men could be rescued.
1725	Akerendam	200	The ship of the Dutch East India Company was smashed and sunk on the cliffs of the Norwegian island Runde in a storm on the way to Batavia . All 200 men of the crew perished. The Akerendam had some boxes of gold and silver coins on board. This treasure was discovered and recovered by recreational divers in 1972.
July 15, 1733	Silver fleet	?	The silver fleet of 21 or 22 ships coming from Havana got caught in a hurricane off the Florida Keys . All but one of the ships sank or ran aground. The survivors and a rescue fleet were able to recover most of the treasures on board.
0December 5, 1737	8 ships	hundreds	In the Table Bay , the merchant ships of the went VOC Westerwijk , Rodenrijs , Paddenburg , Goudriaan , Iepenrode , Duinbeek , Buis and the much smaller Victoria in a storm under. 208 men drowned on the Iepenrode alone . So over 1,000 people could have died.
1738	Leusden	702	The slave ship Leusden of the Dutch West India Company was stranded in a storm on the coast of Suriname . The crew closed the hatches and saved themselves; the 702 slaves trapped below deck drowned.
0October 2, 1746	?	1,200	A French naval unit was after the conquest of Madras ( India ) from a typhoon hit. The Duc d'Orléans (54 cannons), the Phénix (54 cannons) and the Lys (40 cannons) and the two captured British ships Mermaid and Advice sank . About 1,200 crew members died. The flagship Achille (74 cannons) and two other ships were dismasted. As a result, all of the association's ships have either sunk or been badly damaged.
April 13, 1749	Pembroke and Namur	850	During an attack on the Kingdom of Thanjavur in south-east India , the two British ships of the line Pembroke (60 cannons) and Namur (74 cannons) - the latter the flagship of Rear Admiral Edward Boscawen  - got caught in a cyclone and sank. Of the 344 men on board the Pembroke , only 14 survived , 520 crew members died when the Namur sank, apparently no one was able to save themselves. Vice Admiral Boscawen, Captain Samuel Marshal, and some officers survived because they were ashore to coordinate military operations. In addition to the total of 850 dead, there was an unknown number of crew members from two ships of the British East India Company, which had also sunk .
April 13, 1758	Prince George	485	The liner Prince George (90 cannons) belonging to a squadron of the British Royal Navy blocking Cartagena ( Spain ) , the flagship of Rear Admiral Thomas Broderick, caught fire for unknown reasons and sank. Due to the high waves, some of the lifeboats capsized and 485 crew members died. Rear Admiral Broderick was rescued after swimming in the water for an hour.
February 14, 1760	Ramillies (ship, 1664)	> 700	The British ship of the line Ramillies (90 cannons) tried to enter Plymouth ( England ) despite bad weather , but got into Bigbury Bay, which is extremely dangerous due to the rocky reefs of Bolt Head, due to a navigation error. A stranding could initially be prevented by capping the masts and lowering anchors, but eventually one anchor cable broke and the second anchor could no longer hold the ship against the wind and current. The Ramillies were driven into a cave at Bolt Head and there were smashed by the surf. Over 700 crew members died, only 26 men were able to save themselves. A midshipman was the only officer to survive . The scene of the accident is still called “Ramillies Cove” today.
0August 6, 1777	De Juffrouw Klara and four other ships	32	On March 5, 1777 De Juffrouw Klara ran out of Hamburg in the direction of Spitzbergen . However, on August 6, the brig and four other ships were trapped by the pack ice near the North Pole. First two ships broke up, and in a strong storm on September 30, the remaining three. 50 men around Hidde Dirks Kat tried to escape across the ice to Greenland. After about a week, 18 men reached Cape Farvel and wintered in the Danish colony of Frederikshåb . Hidde Dirks Kat did not reach his home island Ameland until September 27, 1778.
04th August 1782	Grosvenor	125	The British East India sailor Grosvenor , an approximately 43 meter long three-master of 741 tons, stranded as a result of a navigation error on the South African coast, south of today's Durban . The ship, on the way from Trincomalee to England and with 143 sailors and travelers on board, broke on the cliffs, where 17 people drowned. 126 people reached the coast, but 108 of them died of hunger, thirst and disease over the next few months. Only after 117 days were 18 survivors of the catastrophe found by chance and rescued by Dutch colonists. Up until 1790 (unsuccessful) search expeditions were repeatedly undertaken into the interior of the country in order to find any survivors. Of 143 people on board the Grosvenor , 125 died. There were also about 2.6 million gold coins and 19 chests with precious stones from the British East India Company on board the ship , which have not been recovered to date (2010).
August 29, 1782	Royal George	800	The British ship of the line Royal George (100 cannons) suddenly sank while at anchor in Spithead. About 800 people drowned, including Vice Admiral Richard Kempenfelt , one of the most capable British naval officers of his day, as well as about 300 women and 60 children, most of whom were members of the crew. The ship was heeled for minor repairs and loaded with rum barrels at the same time . An investigation found that the accident was probably due to the rotten condition of the ship's timbers, which is why part of the underwater hull broke out. To this day, the sinking is the worst peacetime shipwreck in the history of the Royal Navy .
December 16, 1796	Séduisant	680	The French ship of the line Séduisant (74 cannons), loaded with troops for an invasion of Ireland , collided with the “Grand Stevenet Reef” when leaving the port of Brest through the so-called “Passage du Raz” and sank, killing around 680 sailors and soldiers . The reasons for the accident were the nocturnal departure, a short-term change of course by Vice Admiral Morard de Galles and the resulting chaos of contradicting light signals and signal shots.
0February 1, 1799	Proserpine	14th	The Proserpine brought a delegation around the British diplomat Thomas Grenville to Cuxhaven, from where he wanted to travel on to Berlin when it ran aground on the Scharhörnriff in thick snow and ice in the Outer Elbe . During the flight of 187 people across the mudflats and ice to the island of Neuwerk 6 miles away , 14 people were killed. In a repeated attempt to retrieve bread from the wreck, a small troop was caught by the tide and the crushed ship and troop were pushed out to sea by the ice drift. It stranded again 36 hours later in front of Baltrum and the squad was able to escape to the island.
March 17, 1800	Queen Charlotte	673	The British liner Queen Charlotte (100 cannons) caught fire in front of the port of Livorno ( Italy ) and sank. Of the 829 crew members, only 156 could be rescued. Thus 673 sailors died. The high number of victims was due, among other things, to the fact that the loaded guns detonated due to the heat and thus kept rescue ships away.
20th September 1800	Insurgent	340	After leaving Hampton Roads (Virginia), the American 40-gun frigate Insurgent disappeared for unknown reasons . The ship should have patrolled the sea area between the West Indies and the coast of Virginia, but probably got caught in a hurricane around September 20, 1800 and sank with the entire crew of 340 men.

See also

• List of disasters