HMS Implacable (1805)

Originally "Duguay-Trouin", she was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, named after René Duguay-Trouin, and launched at Rochefort in 1800 (other sources say 1789 or 1795). On 21 October 1805 she fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, where she was part of the vanguard of the French fleet under "contre-amiral" Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley, and was one of four French ships which escaped capture that day.

On 3 November 1805, British Admiral Sir Richard Strachan, with "Caesar", "Hero", "Courageux", "Namur" and four frigates, defeated and captured what remained of the squadron. In the battle, the captain of "Duguay-Trouin" was killed, her masts were shot away, and she was eventually captured. She was commissioned in the Royal Navy as a 3rd-rate and renamed HMS "Implacable".

She served for the rest of the Napoleonic Wars, capturing the Russian 74-gun ship of the line "Vsevolod" in the Baltic in 1808 and fighting Danish gunboats. In 1840 she was at Acre for the bombardment of that city, commanded by Captain Edward Harvey. She remained in service until 1842. She was used as an accommodation ship, a training ship, a holiday ship, and a coal hulk. In 1943 she was renamed "Foudroyant". She was scuttled in 1949, being by then the second oldest ship of the Navy, after "Victory". Her figurehead and stern galleries were saved and are on display in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.

External links

* [http://hmsbd.free.fr/implacable/implacable.htm HMS "Implacable", or the sad end of a seventy-four] (in French)
* [http://www.duguaytrouin.freeserve.co.uk/Photograph%20Gallery.htm#Photogallery Photographs of "Implacable" in the 1930s and 1940s]
* [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_047500_hmsimplicabl.htm HMS "Implacable"] from Ships "of the World"
* [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singlecontent/contentTypeA/conWebDoc/contentId/219 National Maritime Museum]