HMS Crane (1806)
| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| 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 | |
| Class and type: | Cuckoo-class schooner |
| Tonnage: | 75 1/94 bm |
| Length: |
56 ft 2 in (17.12 m) (overall) 42 ft 4.125 in (12.9 m) (keel) |
| Beam: | 18 ft 3 in (5.56 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 8 ft 3 in (2.51 m) |
| Sail plan: | Schooner |
| Complement: | 20 |
| Armament: | 4 x 12-pounder carronades |
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.
She was commissioned in 1806 under Lieutenant John Cameron for the North Sea.[1] In 1808 she was under a Lieutenant Mitchell, and then under Lieutenant Joseph Tindale.[1]
At 7:30pm on 25 October 1808 she was driven from her anchorage at Plymouth.[2] She dropped a second anchor. By 4am she was near shore and got underweigh 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. With some assistance she was refloated but she went aground again. She sank in deeper water with her starboard gunwhale just clearing the surface.[2] She was later broken up. Fortunately, all aboard her were saved.[2][3]
References
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell).ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
- Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Chatham. ISBN 1-86176-030-2.
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
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