HMS Centaur (1759)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Centaur and French ship Centaure.

File:Sinking of centaur.jpg Sinking of the Centaur, engraving after James Northcote
History
France
Name:	Centaure
Launched:	1757
Captured:	18 August 1759, by Royal Navy
Great Britain
Name:	HMS Centaur
Acquired:	18 August 1759
Fate:	Wrecked, 1782
General characteristics
Class & type:	74-gun third rate ship of the line
Tons burthen:	1739
Length:	175 ft 8 in (53.54 m) (gundeck)
Beam:	47 ft 5 in (14.45 m)
Depth of hold:	20 ft (6.1 m)
Propulsion:	Sails
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Armament:	74 guns of various weights of shot

Centaure was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, launched at Toulon in 1757.

The Royal Navy captured Centaure at the Battle of Lagos on 18 August 1759, and commissioned her as the Third Rate HMS Centaur.

Loss

In September 1782, the Centaur was one of the ships escorting prizes back to Britain from Jamaica, when she foundered during the 1782 Central Atlantic hurricane near the Newfoundland Banks. Captain John Nicholson Inglefield, along with eleven of his crew, survived the wreck in one of the ship's pinnaces, arriving at the Azores after sailing in an open boat for 16 days without compass quadrant or sail, and only two quart bottles of water; some 400 of her crew perished.

See also

• List of ships captured in the 18th century
• Glossary of nautical terms

References

• Lavery, Brian (2003) The Ship of the Line - Volume 1: The development of the battlefleet 1650-1850. Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-252-8.