HMS Sceptre (1781)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Sceptre.
Career (Great Britain)
Name: HMS Sceptre
Ordered: 16 January 1779
Builder: Randall, Rotherhithe
Laid down: May 1780
Launched: 8 June 1781
Honours and
awards:

Participated in:
Fate: Wrecked in Table Bay, 5 November 1799
General characteristics [1]
Class and type: Inflexible-class ship of the line
Tons burthen: 1398 tons (1420.4 tonnes)
Length: 159 ft (48 m) (gundeck)
Beam: 44 ft 4 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold: 18 ft 10 in (5.74 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Armament:

64 guns:

  • Gundeck: 26 × 24 pdrs
  • Upper gundeck: 26 × 18 pdrs
  • Quarterdeck: 10 × 4 pdrs
  • Forecastle: 2 × 9 pdrs

HMS Sceptre was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 8 June 1781 at Rotherhithe.[1] Shortly after completion she was sent out to the Indian Ocean to join Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes's squadron. She arrived in time for the Battle of Trincomalee in 1782. This was the fourth battle of a bloody campaign between Vice-Admiral Hughes and the French Admiral Suffren's squadron.

The following year, she took part in the Battle of Cuddalore (1783), the final battle in the East Indies campaign. She was then laid up for the peace. In 1794, under the command of Commodore John Ford, Sceptre assisted in the capture of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

On 19 June 1795, Sceptre earned her second Battle Honour in Vice Admiral Sir George Elphinstone's squadron, when she captured a squadron of 19 Dutch East Indiamen in the Battle of Muizenberg.[2]

Contents

Wrecking

While under the command of Captain Edwards, Sceptre was caught at anchor in a storm on 5 November 1799 along with seven other ships in Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope. At 10:30am, the captain ordered the topmasts struck, and the fore and main yards lowered in order to ease the ship in the strengthening winds. At midday, the ship fired a feu de joie on the occasion of the Gunpowder Plot, suggesting no apparent apprehension about the oncoming storm. However within half an hour, the main anchor cable parted followed by the secondary one. At approximately 7pm, the ship was driven ashore onto a reef at Woodstock Beach at the site of the present-day Royal Cape Yacht Club. The ship was battered to pieces, and approximately 349 seamen and marines were killed or drowned. One officer, two midshipmen, 47 seamen and one marine were saved from the wreck, but nine of these died on the beach.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ a b Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p181.
  2. ^ Reginald Welbury Jeffery (1911). The New Europe, 1789-1889. Houghton Mifflin. http://books.google.com/books?id=t3xHAAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 2008-11-04. 
  3. ^ "The Autobiography of Sir John Barrow". The United Service Magazine. H. Colburn. 1847. pp. 337. http://books.google.com/books?id=C6sktnjjNBIC. Retrieved 2008-11-04. 

References

  • Terence Grocott - Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras (1997)
  • Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.

External links