French ship Borée (1805)


Scale model of the Achille, sister-ship of the Borée, on display at the Musée de la Marine in Paris
Career (France)
Name: Borée
Namesake: Boreas
Ordered: 4 January 1803
Builder: Toulon
Laid down: 19 August 1803
Launched: 27 June 1805
Struck: 1828
Fate: Broken up in 1828
General characteristics
Class and type: Téméraire-class ship of the line
Displacement: 2 966 tonnes
5 260 tonnes fully loaded
Length: 54 metres
Beam: 14.3 metres
Draught: 6.7 metres
Propulsion: Up to 2 485 m² of sails
Complement: 678 men
Armament:

74 guns:

  • Lower gundeck: 28 x 36-pdr long guns
  • Upper gundeck: 30 x 24-pdr long guns
  • Forecastle and Quarter deck:
16 x 8-pdr long guns
4 x 36-pdr carronades

The Borée was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

Designed based on plans by Jacques-Noël Sané, and updated by Maillot, she was the prototype of a new variant of the Téméraire class designed to have a smaller draught, allowing the production of ships of the line in the shallow harbour of Antwerp.

The construction of Borée was delayed, causing her completion date to fall behind that of Pluton, a sistership then under construction. Borée was retro-fitted improvements introduced on Pluton.

Under Captain Sènes, she was part of Rear-Admiral François Baudin's squadron attempting to deliver reinforcements from Toulon to Barcelona in October 1809. Chased by a British squadron under Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, and sailing with the frigate Pauline, she managed to repel and escape from HMS Tigre and HMS Leviathan, and returned to Toulon after joining up with the frigate Amélie.

She remained there until 1828, when she was struck and broken up.

Sources and references