Naiads (ship, 1811)
The Naiaden was a frigate of the Danish-Norwegian Navy during the Napoleonic Wars . She was sunk on July 6, 1812 in the so-called gunboat war in southern Norwegian coastal waters by the British liner HMS Dictator .
The ship
The ship was (now part of August 1808 the Navy Yard Nyholm Copenhagen district of Christianshavn ) laid down on and according to the plans of the ship's designer Frantz Hohlenberg built (1764 to 1804). During their occupation of Copenhagen in September 1807, the British had not only taken possession of the entire Danish fleet, but also destroyed three ships of the line under construction on the Helgen . The shipbuilders on Nyholm used the wood from one of these three ships of the line, which was still partially usable, to build the new frigate.
The Naiaden was 43.74 m long and 11.13 m wide, had a 4.83 m draft and displaced 1202 tons. Their armament initially consisted of 26 18-pounders, six 18-pounder carronades and four six-pounders, but was reinforced by six additional cannons after arriving in Norway. The crew numbered 336 men, 312 when it sank.
fate
The ship was launched on 26 October 1811 from the pile and was on 29 February 1812 captain , asked Hans Peter Holm, who had previously won several awards in service. However, it was not until June 1, 1812, before the ship and crew were operational. The start of the maiden voyage , on February 29th, was delayed by a day because the ship ran aground while leaving Copenhagen. When it arrived on the island of Justoya in Brekkestø, Norway , the anchor did not hold on the rocky seabed and the naiads damaged their oar on the rocks. Further storm damage, in which the jib and Vorbramstenge went overboard, hindered the training of the crew.
On July 2, 1812, the Najaden , accompanied by the three briggs Kiel , Lolland ( Laaland ) and Samsøe , left the naval base in Fredriksværn , where repairs had been carried out, with the destination Christianssand , but was forced by adverse winds between in the Hagefjord anchor on the islands of Sandøya and Borøya (southeast of Tvedestrand ). The British knew of Holm's voyage and planned to destroy his small squadron in order to enforce their blockade of the Norwegian coast and finally to eliminate the Danish-Norwegian fleet. The 3rd rank ship of the line HMS Dictator (64 cannons) under Captain James Pattison Steward and three briggs ( Calypso , 18 cannons; Podargus , 14 cannons; Flamer , 14 cannons) were assigned to his squadron. When Holm spotted the pursuers off Sandøya, he evaded them by sailing northeast through the Lyngørfjord between the island of Askerøya and the mainland and anchoring in the narrow Lyngør Sound between Holmen and Odden. The three brigs anchored east behind the Najaden , the Laaland and the Kiel on her starboard side, the Samsøe on port. He believed he was safe there, since a ship of the line could not operate in these narrow waters. However, the British squadron followed him and it came to the naval battle of Lyngør on the evening of July 6, 1812.
Stewart, completely surprising to Holm, sailed into Lyngørsund shortly after 9:00 p.m., dropped the stern anchor in the middle and set the bow of the Dictator on the opposite bank. Then he hauled his ship with the anchor chain so that it could fire at the naiads with its entire broadside , which was already ready to fire. From 9:30 p.m. he broadside the naiads, who were lying on their anchor chain with the bow to the enemy in the strong southwest wind and were therefore almost defenseless, for about 15 minutes from a distance of only about 40 m. The Najaden lost almost immediately their entire rig caught fire, got list so that water through the portholes penetrated, and sank after explosion of its powder chamber 40 minutes after the start of the cannonade. 133 men of their crew were killed and 88 were wounded.
The Dictator laid their fire after 15 minutes when the Najaden already was only a burning wreck, the two Briggs Kiel and Lolland , which severely damaged already at 21:47 painted the flag and after the fall of the Naiads by the British were boarded. Only the more distant Samsøe managed to set sail and escape.
Then they began to rescue the wounded and the shipwrecked in the water. At 2:00 a.m. on July 7, the Dictator warped herself free from the bank with her stern anchor, but then ran aground again in the sound. Only after several hours, during an armistice negotiated with the Norwegian cannon sloops, which had meanwhile arrived on site, to exchange wounded and prisoners, the ship was released again after the crew had brought the forward cannons aft. At 5:00 it sailed away, pursued by the gunboats for a while. The Kiel and Lolland had to be left behind under the terms of the armistice.
With the sinking of the Najaden , the only remaining larger ship of the Danish-Norwegian Navy, the Danish-Norwegian participation in the Napoleonic Wars came to an end.
The wreck of the Naiads was found in 1957 ( 58 ° 38 '0 " N , 9 ° 7' 43" E, ).
Footnotes
- ↑ 18 ships of the line, 11 frigates, 14 smaller ships and 26 gunboats.
- ↑ Captain Holm survived, but drowned on October 26, 1812, when his boat capsized in a storm.
Web links
- Description of the battle, with illustrations (norwegian.)
- technical drawings, model of the ship on Orlogsbasen.dk