The Spanish ship ''Argonauta'' was a 80 gun

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

of the

Spanish Navy The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...

. She initially had 24, 18 and 8 pounder guns spread over her lower, upper, quarter and forecastle decks, but by 1805 she carried 36-pounders instead of 24-pounders. Her original crew was 21 officers and 642 ratings and soldiers, though it was 956 at the Battle of Cape Finisterre and 800 at Trafalgar.

History

A sister ship of the ''Neptuno'', she was ordered in November 1795 and launched in June 1798 in Ferrol, to the design of Julian Martín Retamosa. On 25 August 1800, she and the other ships of Joaquín Moreno's squadron (the '' Real Carlos'', '' San Hermenegildo'', ''San Fernando'', ''San Antonio'' and ''San Agustín'') fought off the British

Ferrol Expedition The Ferrol Expedition (or Battle of Brión) took place on 25 and 26 August 1800, and was an unsuccessful British attempt to capture Ferrol from Spain. Ferrol was a major Spanish naval base with a shipyard for shipbuilding and dry dock for re ...

. By 1805 her original main battery of thirty 24-pounder guns had been replaced by the same number of 36-pounders. Unlike her sister ''Neptuno'', the ''Argonauta'' retained her upper deck batter of thirty-two 18-pounders; the original quarter and forecastle decks armament of eighteen 8-pounders had been reduced by two, and instead twelve 30-pounder obuses (howitzers) had been added on those decks, so that her actual armament was 90 carriage guns. She also mounted four small 4-pounder obuses on the poop. The ''Argonauta'' fought at the battle of Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. On the 21 October the same year she was present in

Federico Gravina Federico Carlos Gravina y Nápoli, born Federico Carlo Gravina Cruyllas (12 August 1756 – 9 May 1806) was a Sicilian admiral in the service of the Spanish Empire, during the American Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. He died of wounds sustained d ...

's second squadron at the

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (180 ...

, under the command of Captain

Antonio Pareja Antonio is a masculine given name of Etruscan origin deriving from the root name Antonius. It is a common name among Romance language-speaking populations as well as the Balkans and Lusophone Africa. It has been among the top 400 most popular male ...

and his deputy, Frigate Captain Pedro Albarracin, and losing 60 dead and 148 wounded. She was captured and taken in tow by HMS ''Polyphemus'', but the tow had to be dropped during the storm which followed the battle. On 24 October HMS ''Defiance'' rescued survivors from the ''Argonauta'' and made a failed attempt to re-establish a tow. On 30 October the ''Argonauta'' sank, with her rescued survivors landed at

Algeciras Algeciras ( , ) is a municipality of Spain belonging to the province of Cádiz, Andalusia. Located in the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula, near the Strait of Gibraltar, it is the largest city on the Bay of Gibraltar ( es, Bahía de Algeci ...

the following day.

Bibliography

External links

*http://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?215705
''Todo a Babor. Argonauta''''Militares y Navíos Españoles que participaron en Trafalgar (1)'' de Luís Aragón Martín''Militares y Navíos Españoles que participaron en Trafalgar (2)'' de Luís Aragón Martín''Todo a Babor. Batalla de Brión''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Argonauta 1798 ships Ships built in Spain Ships of the line of the Spanish Navy Maritime incidents in 1805 Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean