![]() 1803 plan of the Apollo class
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History | |
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Name | Saldanha |
Namesake | Capitulation of Saldanha Bay |
Ordered | 1 October 1806 |
Builder | Temple shipbuilders, South Shields |
Laid down | March 1807 |
Launched | 8 December 1809 |
Completed | 6 July 1810 |
Commissioned | April 1810 |
Fate | Wrecked 4 December 1811 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Class and type | Apollo-class fifth-rate frigate |
Tons burthen | 951 29⁄94 (bm) |
Length |
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Beam | 38 ft 4+3⁄4 in (11.7 m) |
Depth of hold | 13 ft 2+1⁄2 in (4.0 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Complement | 264 |
Armament |
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HMS Saldanha was a 36-gun fifth-rate Apollo-class frigate of the Royal Navy. She was commissioned in April 1810 and spent her entire career serving on the Irish Station, including capturing a fast-sailing French privateer on 11 October 1811. In the evening of 4 December that year Saldanha was serving off Lough Swilly when she was caught in a storm. Last seen sailing off Fanad Head, the ship was wrecked in a nearby bay with every person on board being killed and the only survivors being a parrot and a dog. The wreck was memorialised by Thomas Sheridan in his poem The Loss of the Saldanha.