HMS Implacable (1805)

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For other ships with the same name, see HMS Implacable.

Career	-

Laid down:
Launched:	Rochefort, c. 1795
Status:	Scuttled, 1949
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1,896 tonnes
Length:	181 ft 5 in (55.3 m)
Beam:	48 ft 11 in (14.9 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Speed:
Range:	No fuel, so limited only by provisions
Complement:	670 officers and men
Armament:	80 guns: Lower gundeck: 30 × 32pdrs Upper gundeck: 30 × 18pdrs Quarter deck: 12 × 32pdr carronades Forecastle: 2 × 12pdrs
Honours and awards:	Battle of Trafalgar (French side)

Originally Duguay-Trouin, she was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, named after René Duguay-Trouin, and launched at Rochefort in 1800 (other sources say 1789 or 1795). On 21 October 1805 she fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, where she was part of the vanguard of the French fleet under contre-amiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley, and was one of four French ships which escaped capture that day.

On 3 November 1805, British Admiral Sir Richard Strachan, with Caesar, Hero, Courageux, Namur and four frigates, defeated and captured what remained of the squadron. In the battle, the captain of Duguay-Trouin was killed, her masts were shot away, and she was eventually captured. She was commissioned in the Royal Navy as a 3rd-rate and renamed HMS Implacable.

She served for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, capturing the Russian 74-gun ship of the line Vsevolod in the Baltic in 1808 and fighting Danish gunboats. In 1840 she was at Acre for the bombardment of that city. She remained in service until 1842. She was used as an accommodation ship, a training ship, a holiday ship, and a coal hulk. In 1943 she was renamed Foudroyant. She was scuttled in 1949, being by then the second oldest ship of the Navy, after Victory. Her figurehead and stern galleries were saved and are on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.