INVINCIBLE HMS 1777

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aukepalmhof
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INVINCIBLE HMS 1777

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue Jun 02, 2009 9:40 pm

Built a 3rd Rate built by John and William Wells & Co. at Deptford for the Royal Navy.
12 October 1761 ordered.
December 1761 keel laid down.
09 March 1765 launched under the name HMS INVINCIBLE, the second ship by the Royal Navy with that name. She was one of the Ramillies class.
Tonnage 1.631 tons (bm), dim. 168.6 x 47.3 x 19.9ft.
Armament: 28 – 32pdr. lower deck, 28 – 18pdr. upper deck and 4 – 9pdr. on forecastle.
Crew 550.
06 April 1765 moved to Sheerness.
November 1776 commissioned.
February 1777 completed in Chatham Drydock., building cost £42.622.

From April till May 1779 fitted out and coppered at Portsmouth for £8.541.
February 1784 fitted for ordinary (reserve) at Plymouth.
From November 1788 till July 1791 underwent major repairs at Chatham for £35.333.
Recommissioned May 1793, under command of Capt. Thomas Packenham; joined Lord Howe’s fleet.

The INVINCIBLE took part in the battles of 29 May and I June 1794. On the former day she fought three sails-of-de-lines and was twice set on fire by red hot shot fired from the BRUTUS a 50 gun rezee; her main-top-mast was shot away and the fore and main-mast and lower yards were crippled. Ten of her crew were killed and twenty-one wounded. On “The Glorious First of June” she lost four more men killed and ten wounded in an action with the JUSTE, and was again badly disabled. The JUSTE was captured and only saved from destruction when Lieut. Henry Blackwood saw the French captain, although desperately wounded, crawling with a lighted match towards the magazine.
Lord Howe, seeing the disabled state of the INVINCIBLE, sent Venus and Aquilon to tow her out of the line, but Capt Packenham told them that he wanted no assistance except for as many wads and shot-plugs as they could spare, and pointed out a ship they could tow into the line.

Took part in the Battle of St Vincent on 16 January 1780 (the battle is mostly named The Moonlit Battle of St Vincent.) And also in the Battle of St Kitts and Battle of the Saints in 1782

March 1796 refitted at Portsmouth for a total cost of £9.820.
Recommissioned December 1795 under command of Capt. W. Caylee, 21 March 1796 sailed for the Leeward Islands, Caribbean where she took the privateer L’ALEXANDRE armed with 10 guns on 01 April 1796.
Was at the capture of Trinidad on 21 March 1796 and the capture of Surinam in August 1799.
For a short time was she the flagship of Sir Roger Curtis.
August 1800 sailed for the U.K.
On 20 August 1800 she passed the English Channel with 40 vessels under convoy from Martinique. The convoy had separated off the Scilly Islands, with the HMS SOURGE taking 11 sails up the Bristol Channel.
December 1800 till February 1801 under repair at Chatham.

1801 Recommissioned , under command of Capt. John Rennie and flagship of Rear Admiral Thomas Totty.
16 March 1801 she sailed from Yarmouth on the Monday morning for the Sound (Denmark) to join the fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, but shortly after 2 pm the ship struck on Hammonds Knoll, off the Norfolk coast, where she beat most violently for more that two hours, when the mizzen mast went by the board and the main mast was immediately cut away. The ship then dropped from three and a half into seventeen fathoms where she lost her rudder and becoming unmanageable was again driven upon the sandbank.
A fishing smack now approached the wreck, when two of the INVINCIBLE’s boats were got out and in one of these the Rear Admiral Totty, purser, four midshipmen and some seamen reached the fishing smack in safety, as did the other boat also full of people. Both of them immediately returned to the ship, but on approaching the smack once more one was forced away and all on board would have perished had not a collier which happened to be passing at the crucial moment picked them all up; this vessel afterwards afforded every assistance that she was capable of giving, and was the means of saving the lives of many of the crew. He fishing smack with the Rear Admiral on board, although unable to afford the least assistance to the ship, nevertheless remained at anchor during the whole Monday night, and when the daylight came, proceeded towards the ship. But to the dismay of all on the smack, the INVINCIBLE once again drifted off into the deep water and gradually sinking, took with her more as 400 persons.
While the ship was thus going down the launch was hove out and as many as she could possibly hold jumped into her; others who attempted to get on board the already overloaded launch were struck away with the oars, to prevent the certain loss of the whole. About 70 of the crew were saved in the launch, the whole of whom had assembled upon the forecastle; but all those who had remained in the poop were lost. A total of 196 people were saved from the ship which was carrying about 50 passengers in addition to the crew of more as 600.
The brig BRITON of Sunderland rescued two crewmembers, who survived by clinging to a part of the quarter-gallery which broke clear as the vessel went down, after two days and nights. They had no other sustenance but a small quantity of tobacco. One Daniel Brian lost his hearing and was much bruised.

The INVINCIBLE represented Captain Rennie’s first appointment since being made post captain; it was regrettable that he was amongst those who lost their lives.
At Sheerness on 31 March a court martial was assembled on board the HMS RUBY, 64 guns, to try the survivors for the loss of the ship. All the evidence went to prove it was solely owing to the ignorance of the pilot and the master; the latter himself a North Sea pilot; from Yarmouth Roads, or rather after getting through the Thackle, the ship was steering with a free wind, and till half an hour before she struck, they had the advantage of the land in sight to assist them. When she struck, both the pilot and master each asserted that it must be on a bank unknown, or on a knowl (sic) that had recently been made by some convulsion. However, they were deceived, for it proved to be no other than Hammond’s knoll, on which they were drawn by a most rapid tide, allowance for which they had not made.
Rear-Admiral Totty, the surviving officers and crew, were acquitted, the pilot and master both perished with the vessel.


http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/static/pages/1470.html but mostly copied from, http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/I.HTM and from the book Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras by Terence Grocott. British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield.
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