French ship Tonnant (1693)

The Tonnant was a First Rank ship of the line of the French Royal Navy, the lead vessel in the two-ship Tonnant Class (her sister being the Saint Philippe).

History
Kingdom of France
Name: Tonnant
Ordered: Late 1692
Builder: François Coulomb, Toulon Dockyard
Laid down: December 1692
Launched: September 1693
Completed: December 1693
Fate: Sold to be taken to pieces by order of 28 May 1710
General characteristics
Tonnage: 1,750
Length: 158 French feet[1]
Beam: 44½ French feet
Draught: 23 French feet
Depth of hold: 20½ French feet
Decks: 3 gun decks
Complement: 850 (725 in peacetime), + 10/13 officers
Armament: 90 guns

This ship was ordered in late 1692 to be built at Toulon Dockyard, and on 20 January 1693 she was allotted the name Tonnant, taking the name of a ship lost in the Action at La Hogue in June 1692. The designer and builder of both ships was François Coulomb, and they represented an enlargement of his design of 1691 for the Sceptre, with an extra pair of guns (and gunports) added on each level. They were three-decker ships without forecastles. The Tonnant was launched on September 1693 and completed in December of the same year.

She was initially armed with 90 guns, comprising twenty-eight 36-pounders on the lower deck, thirty 18-pounders on the middle deck, twenty-six 12-pounders on the upper deck, and six 6-pounders on the quarterdeck. A fifteenth pair of 12-pounders was added on the upper deck about 1706, raising her to 92 guns.

The Tonnant was rebuilt at Toulon from November 1701 to January 1702; she took part in the Battle of Vélez-Málaga on 24 August 1703. In July 1707 - during the siege of Toulon - she and her sister were undergoing a refit in the basin of Le Mourillon, and avoided the scuttling order which affected most other French ships at Toulon; they were sailed to counter the British attack, and subsequently were used as floating batteries. The Tonnant was condemned at Toulon on 7 April 1710, and on the following 28 May she was ordered to be sold and taken to pieces.

References
  • Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 1 1671 - 1870. p. 223. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.
  • Nomenclature des Vaisseaux du Roi-Soleil de 1661 a 1715. Alain Demerliac (Editions Omega, Nice – various dates).
  • The Sun King's Vessels (2015) - Jean-Claude Lemineur; English translation by François Fougerat. Editions ANCRE. ISBN 978-2903179885
  • Winfield, Rif and Roberts, Stephen (2017) French Warships in the Age of Sail 1626-1786: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4738-9351-1.
  1. The French foot (pre-metric) was 6.575% longer than the equivalent English foot.
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