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
Royal Navy EnsignUnited Kingdom
NameHMS Crane
Ordered11 December 1805
BuilderCustance & Stone, Great Yarmouth
Laid downFebruary 1806
Launched26 April 1806
FateWrecked 26 October 1808
General characteristics [1]
Class and typeCuckoo-class schooner
Tons burthen75194 (bm)
Length
  • 56 ft 2 in (17.1 m) (overall)
  • 42 ft 4+18 in (12.9 m) (keel)
Beam18 ft 3 in (5.6 m)
Depth of hold8 ft 3 in (2.5 m)
Sail planSchooner
Complement20
Armament4 × 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

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  1. ^ For more on Joseph Tindale see: O'Byrne, William R. (1849). "Tindale, Joseph" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray.

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d Winfield (2008), p. 361.
  2. ^ Lloyd's List,[1] - accessed 26 November 2013.
  3. ^ a b Gosset (1986), p. 67.
  4. ^ a b Hepper (1994), p. 126.
  5. ^ Grocott (1997), p. 263.

References

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  • 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.