HMS Neptune (1797)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Career (UK)

Name:	HMS Neptune
Ordered:	15 February 1790
Builder:	Deptford Dockyard
Laid down:	April 1791
Launched:	28 January 1797
Out of service:	1810
Honours and awards:	Participated in: Battle of Trafalgar
Fate:	Broken up, 1818
General characteristics
Class and type:	Neptune-class ship of the line
Tons burthen:	2111 tons (2144.9 tonnes)
Length:	185 ft (56 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	51 ft (16 m)
Depth of hold:	21 ft (6.4 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	98 guns: Gundeck: 28 × 32 pdrs Middle gundeck: 30 × 18 pdrs Upper gundeck: 30 × 18 pdrs Quarterdeck: 8 × 12 pdrs Forecastle: 2 × 12 pdrs

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Neptune.

HMS Neptune was a 98-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 28 January 1797 at Deptford, and was the second ship of the Navy to bear the name. She fought at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Commanded by Captain Thomas Fremantle, she played an important role in the battle, stationed third in the weather line, behind the flagship Victory and the Temeraire. After the battle, it was the Neptune that towed the crippled Victory, bearing Nelson's body, back to Gibraltar.

Combatants at Trafalgar also included the French ship Neptune and the Spanish ship Neptuno.

Neptune served as the flagship for Rear Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane leading the fleet that captured the French colony of Martinique in the West Indies in 1809.

She was laid up in ordinary in 1810 and broken up 1818.