Jacques-Noël Sané (18 February 1740,

Brest Brest may refer to: Places *Brest, Belarus **Brest Region **Brest Airport **Brest Fortress * Brest, Kyustendil Province, Bulgaria * Břest, Czech Republic *Brest, France ** Arrondissement of Brest **Brest Bretagne Airport ** Château de Brest *Br ...

– 22 August 1831,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

) was a French naval engineer. He was the conceptor of standardised designs for ships of the line and

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

s fielded by 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 ...

in the 1780s, which served during the

French Revolutionary Wars The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted French First Republic, France against Ki ...

and the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and in some cases remained in service into the 1860s. Captured ships of his design were commissioned in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and even copied. His achievements earned Sané the nickname of " naval Vauban."French: "''Vauban de la Marine''", after Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban known for his breakthrough

fortifications A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

Biography

Born in Brest in a family of sailors, Sané became a student engineer in 1758 and joined the naval construction academy in Paris in 1765, graduating On 1 October 1766 as an assistant engineer. In 1767, he worked under Ollivier the Elder on naval ships, and with

Antoine Choquet de Lindu Antoine Choquet de Lindu (7 November 1712, in Brest – 7 October 1790, in Brest) was a French architect and military engineer in the service of the French Navy Life Entering the Navy as a clerk, like his father, he executed a very large number ...

on merchant ships. In 1769, he embarked on the

fluyt A fluyt (archaic Dutch: ''fluijt'' "flute"; ) is a Dutch type of sailing vessel originally designed by the shipwrights of Hoorn as a dedicated cargo vessel. Originating in the Dutch Republic in the 16th century, the vessel was designed to faci ...

, bound for

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label=Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...

with four

scow A scow is a smaller type of barge. Some scows are rigged as sailing scows. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, scows carried cargo in coastal waters and inland waterways, having an advantage for navigating shallow water or small harbours. S ...

s and a

dredger Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing da ...

of his design. Promoted to engineer in 1774, he designed the

74-gun The "seventy-four" was a type of two- decked sailing ship of the line, which nominally carried 74 guns. It was developed by the French navy in the 1740s, replacing earlier classes of 60- and 62-gun ships, as a larger complement to the recently-de ...

, comprising and . He then worked on several 12-pounder

s.Jaquin, p.48 During the

War of American Independence The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

, Navy minister Sartine, his successor Castries, and engineer Borda requested standard plans to standardise the production of 18-pounder frigates (equivalent to the British

fifth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal ...

), 74-gun ships of the line (equivalent to the British

third-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy, a third rate was a ship of the line which from the 1720s mounted between 64 and 80 guns, typically built with two gun decks (thus the related term two-decker). Years of experience proved that the third r ...

), 80-gun

two-decker A two-decker is a sail warship which carried her guns on two fully armed decks. Usually additional guns were carried on the upper works (forecastle and quarterdeck), but this was not a continuous battery and thus not counted as a full gun deck ...

s (without equivalent: similar to a third-rate, but longer than a

second-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a second-rate was a ship of the line which by the start of the 18th century mounted 90 to 98 guns on three gun decks; earlier 17th-century second rates had fewer gun ...

and with comparable firepower), and 118-gun

three-decker A three-decker was a sailing warship which carried her principal carriage-mounted guns on three fully armed decks. Usually additional (smaller) guns were carried on the upper works (forecastle and quarterdeck), but this was not a continuous b ...

s (equivalent to the British

first-rate In the rating system of the British Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a first rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Originating in the Jacobean era with the designation of Ships Royal capable of carrying ...

). Sané won three successive competitions: * in 1782, his was selected for the 74-guns * in 1785, his was selected for the 118-guns * in 1787, his was later selected for the 80-gunsJaquin, p.51 In 1784, Sané had his only child, Amélie Fanny Gabrielle; she would later marry Captain Delarue de la Gréardière, and die in December 1812. On 18 June 1787, Sané joined the

Académie de Marine The Royal Naval Academy of France (french: Académie royale de marine) was founded at Brest by a ruling of 31 July 1752 by Antoine Louis de Rouillé, comte de Jouy, Secretary of State for the Navy. This institutionalised an earlier initiative b ...

.Henwood, pp. 125-134 In April 1779, he arrived in

Saint-Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Alli ...

for the construction of the , a 12-pounder 38-gun frigate. He furthermore drew the plans of the frigates , , and . In 1789, he was promoted to sub-director of naval constructions. In 1793, as director of Brest Harbour, he decided to raze the older ships ''Brutus'', and .Debusscher, p. 38 He was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences in 1796, and naval construction inspector on 7 July 1798, responsible for the coast of the Atlantic and of the English Channel; his duty comprised inspection of the harbours and selection of timbers from the forests in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

.Jaquin, pp.53-54 In 1800, Sané was made General inspector for naval engineering, an office he would retain until 1817. In 1807, Sané designed a type of

corvette A corvette is a small warship. It is traditionally the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper (or " rated") warship. The warship class above the corvette is that of the frigate, while the class below was historically that of the slo ...

that remained in service until the end of the sailing navy. The same year, Napoléon required a collection of accurate ship models to document the French Navy;

Denis Decrès Denis Decrès (18 June 1761 – 7 December 1820) was an officer of the French Navy and count, later duke of the First Empire. Early career Decrès was born in Châteauvillain, Haute-Marne on 18 June 1761 and joined the Navy at the age of 18, ...

tasked Sané with the project, known as the

Trianon model collection The Trianon model collection is a set of high-quality ship models ordered by Napoléon for documentary purposes. History In July 1810 Denis Decrès Denis Decrès (18 June 1761 – 7 December 1820) was an officer of the French Navy and cou ...

, for which 13 models were specially created and 6 others collected and upgraded. His plans for 18-pounder frigates were adopted in 1810; the same year, he was made a Baron of Empire. Under the Restoration, Sané was awarded the

Order of Saint Michael , status = Abolished by decree of Louis XVI on 20 June 1790Reestablished by Louis XVIII on 16 November 1816Abolished in 1830 after the July RevolutionRecognised as a dynastic order of chivalry by the ICOC , founder = Louis XI of France , h ...

. In 1820, aged 80, he was made president of the

Commission de Paris The Commission de Paris was a body of French naval engineers gathered in 1821 to design the future frigates and ships of the line of the French Navy for the post-Empire era. Presided by Jacques-Noël Sané, the Commission comprised Jean-Marguerite ...

, although he never involved himself in the upcoming

steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

revolution. The first steamer of the French Navy, , entered service in 1829. Sané died in Paris on 22 August 1831, aged 91.

Work

Sané was responsible for * 9 118-gun ships of the line of the ''Océan'' class * 5 110-gun ships of the * 27 80-guns of the ''Tonnant'' and classes * 107 74-guns of the ''Annibal'' and ''Téméraire'' classes, between 1783 and as late as 1841 * 65 18-pounder frigates of the ''Hébé'', , and classes, built between 1781 and 1814.

Legacy

Three ships of the French Navy have been named ''Sané'' after Jacques-Noël Sané.Vichot, p. 126 The class of 2004 of the

École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées Bretagne The ''École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées de Bretagne'' ( en, National Institute of Advanced Technologies of Brittany) often referred as ENSTA Bretagne formerly ENSIETA is one of the 207 French engineering schools accredited on ...

was named in his honour.

Sources and references

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sane, Jacques Noel 1740 births 1831 deaths French Navy officers from Brest, France French naval architects