Model of a 74-gun ship, 3rd rate, circa 1760. Thought to be either HMS Hercules or HMS Thunderer from 1760.
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History | |
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Great Britain | |
Name | Thunderer |
Ordered | 15 July 1756 |
Builder | Woolwich Dockyard |
Launched | 19 March 1760 |
Fate | Wrecked, 1780 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Hercules-class ship of the line |
Tons burthen | 160933⁄94 (bm) |
Length | 166 ft 6 in (50.75 m) (gundeck) |
Beam | 46 ft 6 in (14.17 m) |
Depth of hold | 19 ft 9 in (6.02 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Full-rigged ship |
Armament |
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HMS Thunderer was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 March 1760 at Woolwich.[1] She earned a battle honour in a single-ship action off Cadiz with the French ship Achille (64 guns) in 1761, during the Seven Years' War.
She foundered in the Great Hurricane of 1780 in the West Indies,[1] reportedly 90 miles east of Jamaica on the Formigas Banks with the loss of all 617 on board.[2] Among the lost sailors were the Captain, Robert Boyle-Walsingham (1736–1780), and Midshipman Nathaniel Cook (1764–1780), the second child of Captain James Cook.
Two cannons attributed to the ship are displayed at a rum cake factory on Grand Cayman Island. A plaque states that they were recovered in 1984 by the research vessel Beacon.[2]