HMS Halcyon (1813)
HMS Halcyon (1813) was a Royal Navy Cruizer class brig-sloop that Edward Larking & William Spong built at King’s Lynn and launched in 1813. She had one of the shortest lives of any vessel of her class. She was commissioned on 13 July under Cmdr. John Houlton Marshall for the West Indies. During her short period of active duty Halcyon escorted convoys and cruised. Less than a year after her commissioning she was wrecked.
On her last cruise she left Britain on 6 April 1814. Halcyon hit a reef off Free Point at Annotto Bay, Jamaica, on 19 May 1814.[1] The reef was marked on the charts but was found ex post to extend much farther than had been charted.[1] Apparently, unknown to anyone but the locals, the reef extended four miles from the shore as a result of an earthquake in 1812. Shortly after she struck the rocks, Halcyon bilged. All her crew were saved, but not without difficulty.
Reference
- Gossett, William Patrick (1986) The lost ships of the Royal Navy, 1793-1900. (London:Mansell). ISBN 0-7201-1816-6
- Winfield, Rif (2008). British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793–1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 1861762461.
