French gun-brig Crachefeu (1794)
Scale: 1:48 Plan showing the body plan, sheer lines with inboard details, and longitudinal half-breadth for Crache Feu, by Edward Tippet [Master Shipwright, Portsmouth Dockyard, 1793-1799], National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
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| History | |
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 France
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| Name: | Crachefeu |
| Builder: | Cherbourg Dockyard |
| Laid down: | October 1793 |
| Launched: | February 1794 |
| Captured: | May 1795 |
 UK
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| Name: | Crachefeu or Crache Feu |
| Acquired: | May 1795 by capture |
| Fate: | Broken up 1797, or ca. 1802 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 150 tons (French) |
| Tons burthen: | 143 60⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: |
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| Beam: | 19 ft 10 1⁄2 in (6.058 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) |
| Complement: | 56 (French service) |
| Armament: | 3 x 18-pounder guns (French & British service) |
Crachefeu was a French Navy gun brig launched in 1793. Sir Richard Strachan's squadron captured her in 1795 in Cartaret Bay, and the Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Crachefeu. She then sailed to the West Indies where she broken up in 1797, or possibly around 1802.
From 22 March 1794 to 8 December, Crachefeu was under the command of enseigne de vaisseau non entretenu Menage. She escorted convoys between Cherbourg and Saint-Malo, and cruised in the vicinity of the island of Jersey and off the coast of the Cotentin Peninsula).
Then from 30 December to 29 April 1795, still under Menage's command, she escorted a convoy from Granville to Carteret, cruised in the vicinity of Chausey, and took up station at Regnéville-sur-Mer.
On 9 May 1795 Strachan, in Melampus, was in command of a squadron that attacked and destroyed a French convoy in Cartaret Bay. The British squadron spotted a convoy of 13 vessels and immediately gave chase. Twelve of the quarry escaped and got close to the shore where a small shore battery, their own armed escorts, and a brig and a lugger offered some protection. Strachan sent in the boats from the vessels in his squadron while Melampus and the ships provided covering fire. The French crews abandoned their vessels at the approach of the British and eventually the shore battery also stopped firing. The cutting out party retrieved all the vessels, save a small sloop, which was hard ashore and which they burnt. Melampus had eight men wounded and in all the British lost one man killed and 14 wounded. They captured a gun brig and a gun lugger, each armed with three 18-pounder guns. They also captured the convoy, which consisted of: Prosperitte (80 tons and carrying cordage), Montagne (200 tons and carrying timber, lead and tin plates), Catharine (200 tons and carrying ship timber), Hyrondelle (220 tons and carrying ship timber and pitch), Contente (250 tons, carrying powder), Nymphe (120 tons carrying fire wood), Bonne-Union (150 tons), Fantazie (45 tons carrying coals), Alexandre (397 and carrying ship timber, cordage, hemp and cannon), and Petit Neptune (113 tons and carrying ship timber). A later prize money report add the names of two more vessels, Crachefeu and Eclair.Crachefeu was the gun-brig and Eclair the gun-lugger, and the Royal Navy took both into service.
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Wikipedia