HMS Crane was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by Custance & Stone at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806.[1] Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | HMS Crane |
| Ordered | 11 December 1805 |
| Builder | Custance & Stone, Great Yarmouth |
| Laid down | February 1806 |
| Launched | 26 April 1806 |
| Fate | Wrecked 26 October 1808 |
| General characteristics [1] | |
| Class and type | Cuckoo-class schooner |
| Tons burthen | 751⁄94 (bm) |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 18 ft 3 in (5.6 m) |
| Depth of hold | 8 ft 3 in (2.5 m) |
| Sail plan | Schooner |
| Complement | 20 |
| Armament | 4 x 12-pounder carronades |
She was commissioned in 1806 under Lieutenant John Cameron for operations in the North Sea.[1] In May 1808 Crane sent into Plymouth the captured Danish vessel Justitia.[2]
In 1808 Crane was under a Lieutenant Mitchell, and then under Lieutenant Joseph Tindale.[1][a]
At 7:30 pm on 25 October 1808 bad weather drove her from her anchorage at Plymouth.[3] She dropped a second anchor. By 4:00 am on 26 October 1808 she was near shore and got under way to make for the Sound. She returned three hours later to find an anchorage but a squall hit her as she went about. She let go an anchor but struck a rock off Plymouth Hoe. She fired her guns to signal distress, which brought out several boats from Plymouth Dockyard.[4] With some assistance she was refloated, but she went aground again. She sank in deeper water with her starboard gunwales just clearing the surface.[3] Boats picked up all her crew from the water.[4][5] She was later broken up.
Notes edit
- ^ For more on Joseph Tindale see: O'Byrne, William R. (1849). . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray.
Citations edit
- ^ a b c d Winfield (2008), p. 361.
- ^ Lloyd's List,[1] - accessed 26 November 2013.
- ^ a b Gosset (1986), p. 67.
- ^ a b Hepper (1994), p. 126.
- ^ Grocott (1997), p. 263.
![[1]](http://www.1812privateers.org/LLOYDS/1808/05-03-1808.jpg){kind=link}
References edit
- Gosset, William Patrick (1986). The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. Mansell. ISBN 0-7201-1816-6.
- Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-030-2.
- Hepper, David J. (1994). British Warship Losses in the Age of Sail, 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 0-948864-30-3.
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-86176-246-7.