HMS Trincomalee#TS Foudroyant

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{{Infobox ship image

| Ship image = H.M.S. Trincomalee, Hartlepool Maritime Experience - geograph.org.uk - 1605077.jpg

| Ship caption = Trincomalee in her current location in Hartlepool

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{{Infobox ship career

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| Ship country =United Kingdom

| Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|naval}}

| Ship name = HMS Trincomalee

| Ship operator = National Museum of the Royal Navy

| Ship ordered = 30 October 1812

| Ship builder = Wadia Group

| Ship original cost = £23,000

| Ship laid down = 25 April 1816

| Ship launched = 12 October 1817

| Ship acquired =

| Ship commissioned =

| Ship decommissioned =

| Ship in service =

| Ship out of service = 1986

| Ship renamed = *Foudroyant: 1903

Trincomalee: 1992

| Ship struck =

| Ship reinstated =

| Ship honours =

| Ship captured =

| Ship fate =

|Ship homeport=*National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool, England

| Ship status = Museum ship

| Ship notes =

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{{Infobox ship characteristics

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| Header caption =

| Ship class = {{sclass|Leda|frigate|3}}

| Ship tons burthen = 1065.63 bm

| Ship length = *{{convert|150|ft|4.5|in|m|abbr=on}} (gundeck)

{{convert|125|ft|7.25|in|m|abbr=on}} (keel)

| Ship beam = {{convert|39|ft|11.25|in|m|abbr=on}}

| Ship draught =

| Ship hold depth = {{convert|12|ft|9|in|m|abbr=on}}

| Ship sail plan = Full-rigged ship

| Ship complement = 315 officers and men

| Ship armament = *38-guns: (classed as 46 as carronades were counted in armament from 1817)

Gundeck:
28 × 18-pounders
Quarterdeck:
14 × 32-pounder carronades
Forecastle:
2 × 9-pounders
2 × 32-pdr carronades

| Ship notes =

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HMS Trincomalee is a Royal Navy {{sclass|Leda|frigate|0}} sailing frigate built shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. She is now restored as a museum ship afloat in the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Hartlepool, England.

History

=1812–1847=

Trincomalee is one of two surviving British frigates of her era—her near-sister {{HMS|Unicorn|1824|6}} (of the modified Leda class) is now a museum ship in Dundee. After being ordered on 30 October 1812, Trincomalee was built in Bombay, India, by the Wadia family{{cite web |url=http://www.zoroastrian.org.uk/vohuman/Article/The%20Wadias%20of%20India.htm |title=The Wadias of India |publisher=zoroastrian.org.uk |access-date=25 July 2015}} of shipwrights in teak, due to oak shortages in Britain as a result of shipbuilding drives for the Napoleonic Wars. The ship was named Trincomalee after the 1782 Battle of Trincomalee off the Ceylon (Sri Lanka) port of that name.

Work on the Trincomalee began in May 1816. Ceremonially an engraved silver nail was hammered into the ship's keel by the master shipbuilder Jamsetjee Bomanjee Wadia, this being considered vital for the ship's well-being, according to Parsi Zoroastrian tradition.{{cite web | title = The History of HMS Trincomalee 1812 to 1986 | url = http://friendsofhmstrincomalee.org.uk/onewebmedia/TK001%20The%20History%20of%20HMS%20Trincomalee%201812%20to%201986.pdf | website = friendsofhmstrincomalee.org.uk | date = 2012 | access-date = 10 March 2023}} With a construction cost of £23,000 (approximately £2,015,000 in 2020), Trincomalee was launched on 12 October 1817. Commander Philip Henry Bridges sailed her to Portsmouth Dockyard, where she arrived on 30 April 1819, with a journey costing £6,600.{{Cite web |title=Trincomalee Construction |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/construction |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170527084839/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/construction |archive-date=2017-05-27 |access-date=25 July 2015 |publisher=The National Museum}} During the maiden voyage the ship arrived at Saint Helena on 24 January 1819, where she stayed for 6 days, leaving with an additional passenger, a surgeon who had attended Napoleon at Longwood House on the island, Mr John Stokoe.The Portsmouth Telegraph letter dated St. Helena 29 Jan. 1819

After being fitted out at a further cost of £2,400, Trincomalee was placed in reserve until 1845, when she was re-armed with fewer guns giving greater firepower, had her stern reshaped and was reclassified as a sixth-rate spar-decked corvette.{{Cite web |title=HMS Trincomalee – Royal Navy Service |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/royal-navy-service |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170527094924/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/royal-navy-service |archive-date=2017-05-27 |access-date=25 July 2015 |publisher=The National Museum}}

=1847–1895=

Trincomalee departed from Portsmouth in 1847 and remained in service for ten years, serving on the North America and West Indies Station. During her time, she was to help quell riots in Haiti and stop a threatened invasion of Cuba, and serve on anti-slavery patrol. In 1849, she was despatched to Newfoundland and Labrador before being recalled to Britain in 1850. In 1852 she sailed to join the Pacific Squadron on the west coast of America,[http://www.nmrn-portsmouth.org.uk/online-information-bank HMS Foudroyant] and upon returning to

England in 1857, she was put back 'in ordinary' after arriving at Chatham on 4 September.

In 1860 Trincomalee was fitted out and then in January 1861 towed to Sunderland to become tender to the drill ship {{HMS|Castor|1832}}, whose role was to train Naval Volunteers boys aged 15 to 16 years being signed up to serve for 10 years on reaching the age of 18 years. During this time Trincomalee's gunports were again modified several times to accommodate different types of training armament. Then in 1862 she was moved to West Hartlepool, then the third largest port in Britain, and

moored in the Union Dock to become an independent drill ship.

= TS ''Foudroyant'' =

Trincomalee finished her Royal Navy service as a training ship, but was placed in reserve again in 1895 and sold for scrap two years later on 19 May 1897. She was then purchased by entrepreneur Geoffry Wheatly Cobb, restored, and renamed Foudroyant in honour of {{HMS|Foudroyant|1798|6}}, his earlier ship that had been wrecked in 1897.{{Cite web |title=HMS Trincomalee – Training days as TS Foudroyant |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/training-days-ts-foudroyant |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315105809/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk:80/history/training-days-ts-foudroyant |archive-date=2016-03-15 |url-status=dead |access-date=18 December 2024 |publisher=The National Museum}}

She was used in conjunction with {{HMS|Implacable|1805|6}} as an accommodation ship, a training ship, and a holiday ship first based in Falmouth and then Milford Haven.Death Of Mr. G. Wheatly Cobb, Western Morning News, 6 April 1931, p8. The relocation caused great dismay in Falmouth.Jordaan, Peter, A Secret Between Gentlemen: Suspects, Strays and Guests, Alchemie Books, 2023, pp123-128. She was based in Portsmouth Harbour in 1954.{{cite journal |journal=The Meccano Magazine |date=April 1954 |last=((The Editor)) |title=More about the Foudroyant |volume=XXXIX |issue=4 |pages=viii, 167 |url=https://archive.org/details/meccano-magazine-1954-04/page/n9/mode/1up?view=theater}}

She remained in service until 1986, after which she was again restored and renamed back to Trincomalee in 1992.{{Cite web |title=Restoration and the present day |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/history/restoration-and-the-present-day |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315105759/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk:80/history/restoration-and-the-present-day |archive-date=2016-03-15 |access-date=18 December 2024 |publisher=The National Museum}}

=Later years=

File:H.M.S. Trincomalee, Hartlepool Maritime Experience - geograph.org.uk - 1604022.jpg

Now listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, following her recent restoration Trincomalee has become the centrepiece of the National Museum of the Royal Navy based in Hartlepool.

Trincomalee holds the distinction of being the oldest British warship still afloat{{cite web |url=http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/about-us |title=HMS Trincomalee – About us |publisher=The National Museum |access-date=25 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151121225205/http://www.hms-trincomalee.co.uk/about-us |archive-date=21 November 2015 |url-status=usurped }} as {{HMS|Victory}}, although 52 years her senior, is in dry dock.

Until his death in 1929, the Falmouth-based painter Henry Scott Tuke used the ship and its trainees as subject matter.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}}

Gallery

File:HMS Trincomalee at Hartlepool 2010 (800x600).jpg

File:H.M.S. Trincomalee, Hartlepool Maritime Experience - geograph.org.uk - 1605081.jpg

File:H.M.S. Trincomalee, Hartlepool Maritime Experience - geograph.org.uk - 1604019.jpg

File:H.M.S. Trincomalee, Hartlepool Maritime Experience - geograph.org.uk - 1605098.jpg

File:Captains cabin HMS Trincomalee geograph.org.uk 1605087 e0de772e-by-Ian-Petticrew.jpg

File:Her Majesty's Ships Amphitrite and Trincomalee Beating out of San Francisco on Sepr 23rd 1854 RMG PY0799.jpg|Trincomalee beating out of San Francisco on 23 Sept 1854