AIGLE French warship 1801

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aukepalmhof
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AIGLE French warship 1801

Post by aukepalmhof » Mon Mar 08, 2021 7:25 pm

Built as a wooden-hulled 2-Rate warship by Arsenal de Rochester, Rochester for the French Navy.
1794 laid down.
1800 launched as the AIGLE.
Displacement 2,966 ton, 5,260 ton full load. Dim. 55.88 x 14.9 x 7.25m.
Powered by sail, three masts, sail area 2,485 m².
Armament: lower deck 28 – 36 pdrs, upper deck 30 – 18 pdrs, and quarter deck and fo’c’sle 16 – 8 pdrs, and 4 carronades of 36 pdrs
Crew 687.
February 1801 commissioned.

The AIGLE was a 74-gun French Teméraire-class ship of the line built at the Rochefort shipyard. She served in the French Navy, came in action in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar. She was captured by the British fleet that day and sunk by the storm that broke out two days later in the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar.

At the service of the French Navy
1802 Sailed from Brest to Genoa where she embarked Rear Admiral Bedout division, transporting Polish troops for the Saint Domingue expedition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Domingue_expedition
1803 Sailing from Brest to Livorno, troop transfer from Livorno to Cap Français amphibious operation in Gnaives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of ... n%C3%A7ais and return to Cadiz.
July 1803 blocked in Cadiz until the arrival on 09 April 1805 of the French squadron.
In 1805 she joined the fleet of Vice Admiral Villeneuve to sail to the Antilles together with the ship ALGECIRAS. She arrived on the island of Martinique, where, together with the rest of the Spanish-French fleet, where she disembarked a division of French soldiers to attack British positions in the Caribbean. Villeneuve was waiting for the French fleet to be led by Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume.
What Villeneuve did not know was that the French fleet was blockaded by the English in the port of Brest, on the French Atlantic coast. The fleet made several skirmishes in the region capturing small British ships. News soon arrived that Nelson had landed in Barbados in search and capture, so it was decided to return to Europe, putting to sea again on 11 June.
Upon arrival in Europe, the fleet found a British convoy at Cape Finisterre under the command of Vice-Admiral Robert Calder, with whom it on July 19, 1805, came in action in the Battle of Finisterre. In the line of battle, Villeneuve ordered the AIGLE very close to the rear, in the eighteenth position. She had little action in the heat of battle, with a final result of six dead.
Together with the rest of the fleet, she managed to reach Finisterre a few days later and Cádiz at the end of August, where she made landfall until leaving in October to Cape Trafalgar.

The AIGLE went to sea on October 19, 1805, along with the rest of the fleet with 755 men under the command of Pierre-Paulin Gourrège. In the battle line, he occupied the fifth place in the second division of the observation squadron, behind the ships SWIFTSURE ARGONAUTA, ALGESIRAS and MONTAÑÉS, and ahead of the BAHAMA commanded by Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and the French frigate HERMIONE.

At the end of the day, the ship was taken by the British fleet. The battle had taken a heavy toll on the AIGLE, with nearly 100 dead, including Gourrége himself, and more than 200 wounded. The ship was towed in order to be taken to the port of Gibraltar and be exposed as spoils of war. 23 October 1805 the French sailors came in revolt and took again control of the AIGLE. However, it was lost two days later at the entrance of Santa Maria (Cadiz, Spain) in a strong storm in which she sank.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIGLE_(1800) and the Internet.
St Helena 2005 10p sg 939, Scott?(the ship on the right is the AIGLE and on the left of the BELLEROPHON is the Spanish MONARCA, who got a broadside in her stern from the BELLEROPHON as seen on stamp)
Attachments
2005  AIGLE iand Monarca n action against Bellerophon-.jpg

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