HMS America (1777)

History
Battle of Ushant
Great Britain
Name	HMS America
Ordered	18 June 1771
Builder	Deptford Dockyard
Launched	5 August 1777
Fate	Broken up, 1807
General characteristics ^[1]
Class and type	Intrepid-class ship of the line
Tons burthen	1370 bm
Length	159 ft 6 in (48.62 m) (gundeck)
Beam	44 ft 4 in (13.51 m)
Depth of hold	19 ft (5.8 m)
Propulsion	Sails
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Armament	64 guns: Gundeck: 26 × 24-pounders Upper gundeck: 26 × 18-pounders Quarterdeck: 10 × 4-pounders Forecastle: 2 × 9-pounders

HMS America was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, designed by John Williams and built by Adam Hayes at Deptford Dockyard and was launched on 5 August 1777.^[1] The name was a traditional name in the Royal Navy and continued unabated despite the American War of Independence in 1776.

YouTube Encyclopedic

1/3
Views:
95 411
1 351
2 216 369

Transcription

Service history

Her first commander was Lord Longford, who took America into the Battle of Ushant as part of the Rear Squadron.

America took part in the Battle of the Chesapeake on 5 September 1781, and on 12 April 1782 saw action under command of Captain Thompson in the white squadron as part of the Battle of the Saintes against a French fleet.^[2]

In 1795 America was part of the British fleet at the Battle of Muizenberg.

America was under way off the Azores on 13 December 1800 when she ran against the Formigas Reef and suffered severe damage to her hull. With some difficulty she was refloated with the tide and returned to harbour. On 27 December America's captain and senior officers were court martialled aboard HMS Carnatic, which was anchored off Port Royal, Jamaica. All were acquitted when the court established that the grounding had been caused by errors in the ship's charts, upon which the reef was marked as being substantially to the south of its actual location.^[3]

Following the grounding, America was withdrawn from active service and in 1801 was redesignated as a prison ship moored off Jamaica. In 1804 she was loaned to the Transport Board (implying she was still sea-worthy). She was decommissioned and broken up in 1807.^[1]

Notable commanders

Lord Longford 1777 to 1779
James Macnamara 1790
John Blankett 1794 to 1796
Edward Buller 1796/7
Joseph Bingham 1800

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Lavery 2003, p. 181.
^ Famous Fighters of the Fleet, Edward Fraser, 1904, p.108
^ Grocott 1997, p. 103

References

Grocott, Terence (1997). Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Eras. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1861760302.
Lavery, Brian (2003). The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0851772528.

v t e Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1800
Shipwrecks	5 Jan: HMS Mastiff 26 Jan: HMS Brazen January (unknown date): Argo February (unknown date): La Vengeance 10 Mar: HMS Repulse 13 Mar: Prince 17 Mar: HMS Queen Charlotte 15 May: HMS Cormorant 9 Jul: Queen July (unknown date): King George 8 Aug: USS Insurgent 10 Aug: HMS Dromedary 20 Aug: USS Pickering August (unknown date): Martha 26 Sep: HMS Hound 8 Oct: HMS Diligence 9 Oct: HMS Galgo October (unknown date): Earl Talbot, HMS Martin 3 Nov: HMS Marlborough 9 Nov: HMS Havick, Hired armed cutter Lion Unknown date: HMS America, Canada, Cornish Hero, Dublin, Norfolk, Recovery
Other incidents	21 Jan: Sarah Ann 3 Feb: Sarah Ann 4 Aug: Concorde 22 Aug: Latona 7 Oct: Confiance, Kent December (unknown date): Iris Unknown date: Shah Ardaseer
1799 1801

This article about a ship of the line of the United Kingdom is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This page was last edited on 25 September 2023, at 10:08

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia