Built as a 5th Rate by Adams & Barnard at Deptford for the Royal Navy.
26 March 1785 launched under the name HMS SOLEBAY, named after the Battle of Solebay fought between the English and Dutch on 28th May 1672, she was 5th ship with that name in the Royal Navy.
Tonnage 683 ton (bm), dim. 126½ x 35ft.
Armament 32 guns.
The first recorded Royal Visit to the Virgin Islands took place in 1787, when King William IV (at that time Prince William Henry) sailed to the Virgin Islands on board the HMS PEGASUS as Captain, who was escorted by BOREAS under command of Captain Horatio Nelson and the SOLEBAY under command of Capt. Holloway.
1799 She was under command of Capt. S.Poyntz.
On 23rd November 1799 she captured the French vessels EGYPTIEN, EOLE, LIVRIER and VENGEUR 10 miles W.N.W. of Cape Tiberon, Haiti.
29 August 1800, under command of Capt. S. Poyntz she returned to Portsmouth from Jamaica.
On 28 October a court martial was held on board HMS SHANNON in Sheerness to try Alexander Brown a seaman from the SOLEBAY, for desertion and running away with a prize belonging to the ship. He was acquitted when the charges were not proved.
1801 Under command of Capt. Thomas Dundas.
20 August 1801, Francis Long, carpenter of SOLEBAY, was sentenced by a court martial to be dismissed the service for drunkenness (at that time the SOLEBAY had already sailed.)
08 August 1801 the SOLEBAY sailed from Portsmouth, with three East Indiamen which had arrived from Cork the previous Monday.
02 July 1802, she returned from the Mediterranean.
1803 Out of commission at Deptford, used as a floating battery.
1807 Under command of R.M. Bromley at Sheerness.
Later that year under Capt. A.Sproule, with Rear Admiral Sir Sydney Smith, At daylight on the morning of 25 November, the SOLEBAY chased and captured the Spanish privateer lugger ESTRELLA DEL NORTE, of Vigo, mounting two – 6 pounders guns and swivels and with a crew of 35 men. She had nine English prisoners on board from the brig LIBERTY of London which they had taken on the 23rd.
1808 Under command of Capt Thomas Brown at Spithead.
1809 Under command of Capt Edward Henry Columbine on the coast of Africa. Small privateers fitted out by the French at Senegal were attacking trade in the neighbourhood, so Capt. Columbine and Major Maxwell who commanded the garrison at Goree, determined to make an attack on the place.
They proceeded against it on 4 July 1809 with the SOLEBAY, DERWENT and TIGRESS and some smaller vessels, carrying a detachment of 160 men from Goree. At first the enemy offered some resistance but when the detachment landed together with 120 seamen and marines, the enemy force of 160 regulars and 140 militia retreated. On the 11th the SOLEBAY, moving up the Senegal River in the reduction of Babaque Island she went on shore and was wrecked. At that time she was about 12 miles above the bar, when she grounded. No lives were lost and most stores saved.
On 11 September 1809 a court martial was convened at Portsmouth to try Captain Columbine, his officers and ship’s company, for the loss of the SOLEBAY; they were all honourably acquitted, but it appeared that after she was on shore and before she was abandoned, four seamen belonging to her had been in a state of drunkenness. Two were sentenced to receive 150 lashes, and the other two 50 lashes each. In addition all four lost all the pay due to them from 11 July last.
British Virgin Islands 2002 35c sg?, scott?
Mostly copied from: http://www.cronab.demon.co.uk/S1.HTM and from the book Shipwrecks of the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Eras by Terence Grocott. Ships of the Royal Navy by Colledge.