Departure from Nantes.
In the beginning of November, 1766, I went to Nantes, where the Boudeuse had just been built, and where M. Duclos Guyot, a captain of a fireship, my second officer, was fitting her out. The 5th of this month we came down from Painbeuf to Mindin, to finish the equipment of her; and on the 15th we sailed from this road for the river de la Plata. There I was to find the two Spanish frigates, called la Esmeralda and la Liebre, that had left Ferrol the 17th of October, and whose commander was ordered to receive the Isles Malouines, or Falkland’s islands, in the name of his Catholic majesty.
Squall of wind.
The 17th in the morning we suffered a sudden gust of wind from W. S. W. to N. W. it grew more violent in the night, which we passed under our bare poles, with our lower-yards[lower-yards] lowered, the clue of the fore-sail, under which we tried before, having been carried away. The 18th, at four in the morning, our fore-top-mast broke about the middle of its height; the main-top-mast resisted till eight o’clock, when it broke in the cap, and carried away the head of the main-mast. |Putting in at Brest.| This last event made it impossible for us to continue our voyage, and I determined to put into Brest, where we arrived the 21st of November.
This squall of wind, and the confusion it had occasioned, gave me room to make the following observations upon the state and qualities of the frigate which I commanded.
1. The prodigious tumbling home of her top-timbers, leaving too little opening to the angles which the shrouds make with the masts, the latter were not sufficiently supported.
2. The preceding fault became of more consequence by the nature of the ballast, which we had been obliged to take in, on account of the prodigious quantity of provisions we had stowed. Forty tuns of ballast, distributed on both sides of the kelson, and at a short distance from it, and a dozen twelve-pounders placed at the bottom of the pump-well (we had only fourteen upon deck) added a considerable weight, which being much below the center of gravity, and almost entirely rested upon the kelson, put the masts in danger, if there had been any rolling.
These reflections induced me to get the excessive height of our masts shortened, and to exchange the cannon, which were twelve-pounders, for eight-pounders. Besides the diminution of near twenty ton weight, both in the hold and upon deck, gained by exchanging the artillery, the narrow make of the frigate alone was sufficient to render it necessary. She wanted about two feet of the beam which such frigates have as are intended to carry twelve-pounders.
Notwithstanding these alterations, which I was allowed to make, I could not help observing that my ship was not fit for navigating in the seas round Cape Horn. I had found, during the squall of wind, that she made water from all her upper-works, which might expose part of my biscuit to be spoiled by the water getting into the store-rooms in bad weather; an inconvenience, the consequences of which we should not be able to remedy during the voyage. I therefore asked leave to send the Boudeuse back to France from the Falkland’s islands, under the command of the chevalier Bournand, lieutenant of a ship, and to continue the voyage with the store-ship l’Etoile alone, if the long winter nights should prevent my passing the Straits of Magalhaens[[10]]. I obtained this permission, and the 4th of December, our masts being repaired, the artillery exchanged, and the frigate entirely caulked in her upper-works, we went out of the port and anchored in the road, where we continued a whole day, in order to embark the powder, and to set up the shrouds.
December. Departure from Brest.