Robust (1806)
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| The robust one in a painting by Antoine Roux. | ||
| Ship data | ||
| Surname: | Robust | |
| Type / Class: | Liner of the first rank Bucentaure class | |
| Keel laying : | April 1805 | |
| Launching ( ship christening ): | October 30, 1806 | |
| Fate: | Burned by order on October 26, 1809 | |
| Builder: | not known | |
| Constructor: | Jacques-Noël Sané | |
| Crew: | 866 officer and crew grades | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Type: | Battery ship (timber construction, two-decker) | |
| Length over all: | 55.88 m | |
| Width: | 15.27 m | |
| Drive: | Sails (2683 m² sail area) | |
| Draft: | 7.63 m | |
| Armor system: | without | |
| Armament | ||
| 36 pounders: | 30th | |
| 24 pounders: | 32 | |
| 12 pounders: | 18th | |
| 36 pounder howitzers : | 6th | |
The Robuste was a sailing warship in the French Navy . She was the flagship of Admiral Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien . The Robust was a 80 guns - Battleship .
construction
The ship was a square sail with three masts ( mizzen mast , main mast and foremast ). Only on the mizzen mast was there a gaff sail in the lowest position (lower mizzen sail) . The sturdy had two decks and ended in the stern area with a smooth transom . Galleries were integrated into the transom that led into the side galleries . The ship was equipped with 80 cannons and was therefore a ship of the line of the 1st rank .
history
The Robuste only had a relatively short period of service before it was decommissioned under special circumstances.
Upon completion, it was assigned to Captain Louis-Antoine-Cyprien Infernet and later commanded by Julien Marie Cosmao-Kerjulien .
From April 1809 she acted as the flagship of a squadron . At this point, France was in the fifth coalition war against Great Britain and Austria.
When Admiral Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume organized the reinforcement of Spanish fleets in 1809, the Robuste became the flagship of a squadron under Cosmao. Together with the Donawerth , Génois , Borée and Lion as well as the frigates Pauline and Pénélope , the Robuste was henceforth active in the escort mission and protected transport ships.
From October 1809, the squadron was under Rear Admiral François-André Baudin with the same order. On October 21, 1809, the association was discovered by the British HMS Pomone and reported to Vice-Admiral Lord Collingwood , who immediately dispatched three frigates as vanguard and set out himself with 15 ships of the line to take up the chase.
On the morning of October 23, the British Volontaire was able to pick up and report to the French squadron. The British Association pursued but lost contact. On October 24, 1809, the ships Robuste , Borée , Lion and Pauline were picked up by the Tigre , but were eventually lost again. It was not until October 25 that both parts of the fleet came into sight again near the southern French coast. The French sailed very close to the coast and were pursued by the British.
Apparently, some ships came under so much pressure that they stranded around noon near the French coastal town of Frontignan - including the Robuste and the Lion .
After two hours of unsuccessful efforts to free the ships, Baudin gave up the ships and ordered them to be burned so that they could not fall into the hands of the British as prizes .
Sources and web links
- Rémi Monaque: Trafalgar. October 21, 1805 (Bibliothèque napoléonienne). Tallandier, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-84734-236-2 .
- William James : The Naval History of Great Britain during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Vol. 2: 1797-1799 . Conway Maritime Press, London 2003, ISBN 0-85177-906-9 , pp. 142 ff. (Reprint of the London 1859 edition)
- Jean-Michel Roche: Dictionnaire des Bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours, Vol. 1: 1671-1870 . Édition Roche, Toulon 2005, ISBN 2-9525917-0-9 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ The French Bucentaure class was a modified Tonnant class. Some experts therefore also classify the ship within the Tonnant series
- ↑ The French division into rank classes differed from the British. At the time the Robuste was completed , French ships of the first rank were three-deckers with up to 118 cannons or two-deckers with up to 80 cannons