Montanes

Posted by F.F. on Tuesday 14th of March 2023 18:30

I found French references on the French Navy's actions in the Mediterranean Sea in 1795.

From its arrival in Toulon on the 24ᵗʰ of March (after having been defeated on the 14ᵗʰ in the battle of Genoa) to its weighing in June, the 9ᵗʰ, which was to end by the battle of the Hyères Islands, no French line of battle ship left that port (see, on that and what follows, Jacques Onésime Troude, Bataille navales de la France, Paris, 1867, volume ⅱ, pages 431 and 432; avalaible on Internet Archive for online reading and downloading). Even then, lack of everything was such that one of the French ships had to go back because of her dangerously poor condition, and each ship missed some 100 men. And leaving Toulon had been made difficult because the Republican party feared the French sailors would give, once in sea, their ships to the English.

So the fight of the Montañés, off the Mediterranean coast of Spain, on the 30ᵗʰ of March, against 8 French ships of the line, including one three-decker, is likely a myth.

I wrote that in 1794 the Montañés had been tested against the San Ildefonso, whereas, as stated on threedecks, she had been tested against the Monarca, sistership of the San Ildefonso; and that the Montañés had then been found slightly a better sailer, on the whole, with the exception of their best point of sailing, whereas it was with following winds that the Monarca performed slightly better. Yet it's enough to wonder how it would be possible for the Montañés to reach 14 knots at her best point of sailng and 10 close hauled, being just slightly faster in tests than a ship regarded as slow when compared to ships reaching 11 knots at their best point of sailing or 9 close hauled. And the uncommon ratio between 14 at her best point and 10 close hauled (for such a slim ship, furthermore) is enough to wonder where such statements first came from.

I think none of the very few ships built from Retamosa's system was ever in the Royal Navy; but many built from Romero de Landa's system were taken and used, including the San Ildefonso, sistership of the Monarca which the Montañés hardly bested, and none of them was then regarded as a good sailer. As far as I konw, the Spanish ships of the line and frigates praised in the XVIIIᵗʰ century by British sailors had been built either from Gaztañeta's or from Gautier's systems.

Posted by F.F. on Monday 13th of March 2023 18:17

Wikipedia has an article on the Montañés, in which it is stated that «she was much faster than other ships of the same era, reaching 14 (rather than the average 10) knots downwind and 10 (rather than 8) knots upwind.

In 1795 she fought a French force of 8 ships of the line (including one three-decker) and 2 frigates single-handed in the bay of San Feliu de Guíxols - thanks to her superior speed, the Montañés managed to get within range of a coastal artillery battery, forcing the French to break off the chase.»

No rexerence is given for those statements.

That article, already including those statements, was first published in March 2015, on the 5, and since then was edited fourteen times, the three last time by a «Rif Winfield» — seemingly the writer known for his works on the age of sail.

Neither in Spanish websites nor in French references either published or online could I find something else on a fight in 1795 against a French three-decker. The only one then remaining to France in Mediterranea was the Sans-Culot(t)e, renamed that year the Orient, launched in 1790 under the name le Dauphin-Royal («the Royal Delphin»: the Deplhin was the French counterpart of the Prince of Wales, i. e. the first son of the king), which, being the French flagship, was to explode in 1798 during the battle of the Nile, and was then, and for dozens of years more, with her sisterships, the largest and more heavily gunned ship existing.

Commonly ships of the line reached 10 or 11 knots at their best point of saing, and 8 or 9 knots close-hauled. Good frigates reached 13 (uncommonly 14) knots before the wind, 10 knots (uncommoly 11) close-hauled. The Montañés was tested in 1794, against the San Ildefonso, and proved herself a slighltly faster sailer, whereas slightly outsailed at their best point of sailing (which was, for most of ships, two or three points from the wind). As the San Ildefonso and her sisterships were regarded as poor sailers in the Royal Navy, and as the French ships on the whole were better sailers than even the British ones, and furthermore as the San Ildefonso and her sisterships were in the French Navy despised as very slow sailers, it appears that the statements I quoted are either a mistake or misleadingly reported.

Does anyone know more thereupon?

The Montañés was not as broad as the San Ildefonso, but had more depth in her hold, and was as long as her. The San Ildefonso, a archetypal Spanish 70~74-gun ship of the line, had a displacement of some 2700ｔ (SI) and a burthen of 1752 tons (measured as in the Royal Navy; in Europe, burthen was rarely used except for merchant ships). The Montañés had a displacement of some 2530ｔ (SI), and her burthen wolud have been calculated, if measured in Great Britain, as some 1650 or 1700 tons. British 74s at the outbreak of the French Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars usually were somewhat smaller: average was around 1650 tons burthen, more than 1700 being uncommon, the Brunswick and a few ships, as the Triumph which was made from a French 74, ranging around 1800. The French 74s were, on the opposite, larger than both their British and their Spanish counterparts: the oldest ones had a burthen (as measured in the Royal Navy) of some 1685 tons; 1800 tons or so were more common; and the new type, the Téméraire class of Jacques-Noël Sané, the only one still built and accounting for one half of the French third rates in 1793, on the average reached nearly 1890 tons, and had a displacement of 2900 or 3000ｔ, figures which were soon to become a kind of world-wide standard in that rate.