''Fortune'' was an armed storeship of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

. She is notable for taking part in the

First voyage of Kerguelen The first voyage of Kerguelen was an expedition of the French Navy to the southern Indian Ocean conducted by the fluyts ''Fortune'' and ''Gros Ventre'', under Lieutenant Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec. The aims of the expedition were to s ...

Career

In the 1760s, ''Fortune'' was in service between France and America, sailing from Rochefort, Bordeaux and Brest, bound for Louisiane, Saint-Domingue and Cayenne. On 20 August 1771, ''Berryer'' arrived at the island, under Lieutenant

Kerguelen The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a archipelago, group of islands in the subantarctic, sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the ...

, tasked with a mission of exploration to seek new territories South of Isle de France. Kerguelen abandoned ''Berryer'' and requisitioned ''Fortune'' and the 16-gun ''Gros Ventre'' to continue his mission. ''Fortune'' and ''Gros Ventre'' started by surveying a new route to the

Coromandel Coast The Coromandel Coast is the southeastern coastal region of the Indian subcontinent, bounded by the Utkal Plains to the north, the Bay of Bengal to the east, the Kaveri delta to the south, and the Eastern Ghats to the west, extending over an ...

discovered in 1767 by then-Ensign

Grenier Grenier is a surname. It is a French word for ''attic, loft,'' or ''granary''. Notable people with the surname include: * Adrian Grenier * Angèle Grenier, Canadian maple syrup producer * Auguste Jean François Grenier (1814–1890), French docto ...

, of the corvette ''Heure du Berger''. Then, on 16 January 1772, ''Gros Ventre'' and ''Fortune'' departed for the

. ''Gros Ventre'' and ''Fortune'' sailed South, the crew suffering considerably from the cold, for which they were neither prepared nor equipped. On 13 February, they sighted land, and Ensign Boisguehenneuc managed to land, and claim the new shore for France. From 14, the ships surveyed the coast, but the poor state of the crew prevented anchoring. On 16, ''Gros Ventre'' and ''Fortune'' lost sight one from another in the fog and a heavy sea. On 18, both stopped searching for the other and, ''Fortune'' returned to Isle de France under Kerguelen, while ''Gros Ventre'' went on to continue her mission of the shores of Australia.

Fate

''Fortune'' was wrecked at Fort Dauphin, in Madagascar, in June 1774

Notes, citations, and references

Notes Citations References * * * * External links * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fortune Fluyts of the French Navy