HMS Crane (1806)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Crane.

HMS Crane was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by Custance & Stone at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806.^[1] Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.

History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Crane
Ordered	11 December 1805
Builder	Custance & Stone, Great Yarmouth
Laid down	February 1806
Launched	26 April 1806
Fate	Wrecked 26 October 1808
General characteristics [1]
Class & type	Cuckoo-class schooner
Tons burthen	751⁄94 (bm)
Length	56 ft 2 in (17.1 m) (overall) 42 ft 4+1⁄8 in (12.9 m) (keel)
Beam	18 ft 3 in (5.6 m)
Depth of hold	8 ft 3 in (2.5 m)
Sail plan	Schooner
Complement	20
Armament	4 × 12-pounder carronades

She was commissioned in 1806 under Lieutenant John Cameron for operations in the North Sea.^[1] In May 1808 Crane sent into Plymouth the captured Danish vessel Justitia.^[2]

In 1808 Crane was under a Lieutenant Mitchell, and then under Lieutenant Joseph Tindale.^[1][a]

At 7:30 pm on 25 October 1808 bad weather drove her from her anchorage at Plymouth.^[3] She dropped a second anchor. By 4:00 am on 26 October 1808 she was near shore and got under way to make for the Sound. She returned three hours later to find an anchorage but a squall hit her as she went about. She let go an anchor but struck a rock off Plymouth Hoe. She fired her guns to signal distress, which brought out several boats from Plymouth Dockyard.^[4] With some assistance she was refloated, but she went aground again. She sank in deeper water with her starboard gunwales just clearing the surface.^[3] Boats picked up all her crew from the water.^[4][5] She was later broken up.

Notes

1. For more on Joseph Tindale see: O'Byrne, William R. (1849). "Tindale, Joseph" . A Naval Biographical Dictionary. London: John Murray.