La Fama

CMT Weekly Challenge: The challenge is to post a image to do with Sailing, Ships or Boats. CMT9

“'La Fama' a venetian, 66 gun, ship-of-the-line, by John R. Whittemore early 18th century

Fama was the flagship of the last great admiral of the Venetian Republic, Angelo Emo, who led the ship during its continuous missions hunting the Barbary pirates including the siege of Tunis in 1785. It was built in the Venetian arsenal by Giovanni Domenico Giacomazzi in 1784, considered the best Venetian shipbuilder of his time. It was equipped with 66 guns and was therefore a fourth rate, with two decks. However she was not very big but very agile and good to sail. She was crewed by around 450-500 men, depending on how many sailors Venice could muster at the time. The Venetian state had a continuous issue with raising the appropriate number of men to serve on her navies during the later years of the republic. Fama had similar crew numbers to her contemporary 64s by other navies, however due to her smaller size these men served in even more cramp conditions than was generally experienced by the worlds navies, her officers quarters were equally as confined, especially considering that she was used for most of her career as an admiral’s flagship, although these close natured lodgings were something the Venetians were always used to back at home in Venice.

Fama herself spent most of her career in active service, either stationed off of Corfu with the main detachment of the Venetian navy, ready to face threats from threats to the mouth of the Adriatic by the Ottomans or other hostile nations or spent hunting Pirates over the Mediterranean or Barbary Coast. Fama was captured alongside the rest of the Venetian fleet by Napoleon in 1797 when she was briefly renamed Renomee and then renamed again to Du Blois a month later. After her capture she was sailed to Tulon where she was rearmed with slightly smaller guns to fit French standards to take part in Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition where she unfortunately collided with the French flagship “L'Orient”, suffering severe damage. Despite her damage she remained to Alexandria and was used as headquarters by General Kleber was later partially sunk to block the entrance into Alexandria, she was then captured by the British and sadly broken up without the French, nor British ever realising her potential as a swift and powerful shock ship or as a strong commerce escort and pirate hunter."

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