Built in 1694 by Fisher Harding at Deptford for the Royal Navy.
Launched under the name HMS PARAMOUR. (at that time better known as the Pink PARAMOUR.)
Tonnage 89 ton (bm), dim. 19.5 x 5.5 x 2.9m, length of keel 15.8m.
Rigged and built as a three masted pink., lightly armed.
She was the first special built ship for survey work, but after completing she lay idle alongside the dockyard the first two years.
04 June 1696 Edmund Halley was appointed master of the PARAMOUR. Halley and the Royal Society had to pay the crew wages over a twelve-month period, when the finances having been settled between the Admiralty and the Royal Society the PARAMOUR was laid up again. Halley was occupied with some other business.
At least in early 1698 when Tsar Peter I visited Great Britain, and with the Tsar at the helm the PARAMOUR made her first sailing trial.
Thereafter the PARAMOUR was dry-docked and sheathed, provisioned for a voyage of 12 months. Halley was appointed again, but without any seagoing experience, got a second in command Lieutenant Edward Harrison an officer with 8 year service in the Royal Navy.
The first expedition was to improve the knowledge of the Longitude and the magnetic variation of the compass. In the instructions given by the Admiralty to sail south of the Equator and to observe the variations of the compass between the east coast of South Africa and the west coast of Africa.
Then he had to survey the coast of Terra Incognita supposed laying between Strait Magellan and the Cape of Good Hope.
20 October 1698 the PARAMOUR with on board 20 men sailed from the Thames, but during her long period of laying up, and only a few sailing trials, after a few days at sea, she started leaking, and the sand ballast choked the hand pumps. Halley made a call at Portsmouth for repair and on the Naval Dockyard she was recaulked, and the ballast was changed for shingle.
22 November she sailed out again and joined the fleet of Rear Admiral John Benbow who was waiting at anchor off Wight for a fair wind to sail for Madeira and the West Indies.
After Madeira the PARAMOUR left the fleet and sailed for the Cape Verde Islands, where she got some firewood and water. She sailed then to the South Atlantic but by calms or contrary winds and a northward setting current, she made very little headway. Water was rationed and Halley decided to make a call at Fernando de Noronha Island a island about 300 miles south of the equator and 200 miles off the Brazilian coast.
During this long passage crew trouble brewed, at least she anchored of the island, but found not any drinking water only small turtle doves and land crabs. When at anchor Halley tried to improve the sailing conditions of the vessel by altering the rake of the mast, setting up the shrouds, and the grown on bottom of the vessel was scrubbed. Then he set sail for the coast of Brazil. On the river Paraiba she got fresh water, but the season for good weather in the South Atlantic was gone and with some problems with his officers and crew he decided to sail to the West Indies to replace some of his crew with more willing men of the West Indian Fleet, he made calls at Barbados and Anguilla but could not find any replacement, then he sailed home were he arrived on 22 June 1699.
His second in command Harrison and some other troublemakers were replaced, and after the sailing qualities were improved the PARAMOUR sailed out again under command of Halley from the Downs on 27 September 1699 together with a Royal African Comp. ship the FALCONBIRD for protection the first part of the voyage. The PARAMOUR with a crew of 24 men of which 9 of the previous voyage.
12 October she parted from her company and she headed for Madeira to buy some barrels of wine, but by contrary winds she could not reach the island and sailed for the Cape Verde Islands. During this time a cabin boy fell overboard and drowned.
After watering at the Cape Verde the PARAMOUR sailed for the south passed the equator and sailed to Rio de Janeiro, after storing and watering she sailed out on 29 December for the south and recording the magnetic variations when possible.
On 1 February 1700 in a position of 52 24S and 35W they sighted some islands, but the next days they found out that it were large tabular icebergs.
February he sighted Tristan da Cunha, but high seas made a landing impossible and the PARAMOUR sailed away and headed for the Cape of Good Hope. Storms made it impossible to reach Cape Town, and instead she altered course to St Helena and on 12 March she anchored off the island near Jamestown.
After taking in fresh water of not so good quality and fresh provision the PARAMOUR sailed from St Helena on 30 March homeward bound. He set first course to the Brazilian coast for the Island Trinidade, he found the island and claimed the island for King William III.
In Receife Halley was arrested as a suspected privateer, but later released without a conviction. Then they sailed to Barbados were they stayed for a short time, then she headed for the Northern waters, at Bermuda the PARAMOUR was careened and scrubbed, the decks re-caulked, and repainted. Then she headed north and off New Foundland the PARAMOUR came under fire of nervous cod-fishing vessels, she was mistaken for a privateer. She took in fresh water and firewood at Toad’s Cove, and then crossed the North Atlantic.
The last he wrote in the PARAMOUR journal was on 07 September 1700; “Deliver’d the Pink this evening into the hands of Captn. William Wright Master of Attendance at Deptford.
Halley made a third voyage on the PARAMOUR in the summer of 1701 when he crisscrossed the English Channel to investigate the tides in this waters.
The PARAMOUR was later refitted in a bomb ketch and under command Captain Robert Stevens she joined Sir George Rooke’s squadron in the Mediterranean in 1702 in the war against France.
1706 Sold to Captain John Constable, most probably used in the merchant marine, fate unknown.
Halley is better known after the comet that was later named after him.
Tristan da Cunha 1986 50p sg 405, scott 387.
Source: Ships of the World by Lincoln P Paine. Below the Convergence by Alan Gurney.