HMS Barracouta (1804)

From SpottingWorld, the Hub for the SpottingWorld network...
Career (UK) Royal Navy Ensign
Name: HMS Barracouta
Ordered: 23 June 1803
Builder: Goodrich & Co. (prime contractor), Bermuda
Laid down: 1803
Launched: 1804
Fate: Wrecked 3 October 1805
General characteristics
Type: Ballahoo-class schooner
Tonnage: 70 41/94 bm
Length: 55 ft 2 in (16.81 m) (overall)
40 ft 10.5 in (12.5 m) (keel)
Beam: 18 ft 0 in (5.49 m)
Depth of hold: 9 ft 0 in (2.74 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Schooner
Complement: 20
Armament: 4 x 12-pounder Carronades

HMS Barracouta (1804) was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of 4 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804.[1] Like many of her class and the related Cuckoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

She was commissioned under Lieut. Joel Orchard and was wrecked on 3 October 1805.[1] Because of bad weather and strong currents, and despite having kept a good lookout with soundings, she struck a reef of rocks during the night. Dawn found her on a ridge running north-south and about three miles from Padro Kay near the Jardines (Cuba).[2]

All her crew were saved and set sail in one of her boats, which they had previously taken from the Spanish. They came across a Spanish schooner that they captured.[2] Unfortunately, two privateers that had set out from Trinidad against them captured them in turn.[2] The crew were made prisoners of war; one, a sub-lieutenant, died during captivity.[3]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Winfield (2008), p.359.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Gossett (1986), p. 49.
  3. Grocott (1997), p.199.
  • Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell).ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
  • Grocott, Terrence (1997) Shipwrecks of the revolutionary & Napoleonic eras. (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole).
  • Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.