French ship Austerlitz (1852)

	The Austerlitz in 1854, drawing by Louis Le Breton
History
France
Namesake	Battle of Austerlitz
Builder	Cherbourg
Laid down	17 August 1832
Launched	15 September 1852
Fate	Scrapped, 1895
General characteristics
Class and type	Hercule class
Displacement	4500 tonnes
Length	70.62 m (231.7 ft)
Beam	16.80 m (55.1 ft)
Draught	7.67 m (25.2 ft)
Propulsion	Sail; Steam engine after 1850, 500 shp;
Speed	10.2 knots (18.9 km/h; 11.7 mph)
Complement	883
Armament	100 guns

The Austerlitz was a late 100-gun Hercule-class ship of the line of the French Navy.

Service history

Laid down as Ajax, she was renamed Austerlitz on 28 November 1839, still on keel.

In 1850, her rigging was changed for that of a 90-gun, and a steam engine was installed.

On 19 September 1854, she ran aground in the Ledsund, in Åland, Grand Duchy of Finland. She was refloated after throwing sixteen of her cannon overboard.^[1] She took part in operations in the Black Sea in 1854.^[2] On 16 April 1855, Austerlitz ran aground at South Foreland, Kent, United Kingdom in foggy weather.^[3] She was refloated the next day.^[4]

From 1871, she was used as a prison hulk of prisoners of the Paris Commune. Between 1874 and 1894, she was used as a school ship. She was eventually broken up in 1895.

Citations

^ "The Baltic". The Times. No. 21863. London. 4 October 1854. col B-C, p. 7.
^ Roche, p.58
^ "Ship News". The Times. No. 22030. London. 17 April 1855. col E, p. 12.
^ "Ship News". The Standard. No. 9576. London. 17 April 1855.

References

Jones, Colin (1996). "Entente Cordiale, 1865". In McLean, David & Preston, Antony (eds.). Warship 1996. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-685-X.
Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 1 1671–1870. Roche. p. 58. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.