FAMOUS

SHIPS

The HMS BEAGLE changed designations during her lifetime, but she was most famous as a bark.  Her dimensions were: Length, 90.3 feet; breadth, 24.5 feet; depth, 12.5 feet with a tonnage rated at 235 bm.  She had five 6-pounders and two 9-pounders as armament, was designed by Sir Henry Peake and built at Woolwich Dockyard in 1820.  So much for the technical details.

HMS BEAGLE was originally launched as one of 115 CHEROKEE-class 10-gun brigs built by the Royal Navy between 1807 and 1830.  These ships were used for many different duties including surveying and antislavery patrols.  HMS BEAGLE was converted to a bark rig before her first major voyage.  This first voyage was to chart the straits and passages of the southern tip of South America from May 1826 until October 1830.  During this voyage the Beagle Channel was named.  Things were so difficult while cruising around Tierra de Fuego, with the stress of the difficult circumstances and conditions, the Captain Pringle Stokes killed himself in August 1828.  She was very short on provisions and many of her crew were sick, but Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy took command and brought the ship first to Buenos Aires and then home.

FitzRoy commanded HMS BEAGLE on her subsequent circumnavigation.  She completed her survey of Tierra del Fuego followed by the Chilean coast and a number of Pacific islands.  Among her 74 crew and passengers were three individuals from Tierra del Fuego who were returning home and one twenty-one year old botany student named Charles Darwin.

HMS BEAGLE departed Devonport on December 27, 1831.  She stopped in the Cape Verde Islands and Bahia before arriving at Rio de Janeiro on April 4^th.  While HMS BEAGLE was conducting hydrographic surveys of the Brazilian coast Darwin was occupied in researching the rain forests of the area.  She then proceeded to Bahia Blanca, Argentina, where Darwin first uncovered fossils that started him on his relationship theory concerning living and extinct species.

The ship arrived off Tierra del Fuego to drop off the three individuals from there, then the HMS BEAGLE returned to Uruguay, via the Falkland Islands, to continue the surveying of the Argentinean coast from April through July, when she arrived at Rio Negro.  Darwin went overland from there to Bahia Blanca, then up the Rio Parana to Santa Fe and finally to Montevideo, where he rejoined the ship on October 21.  Then, HMS BEAGLE returned to Tierra del Fuego to complete her survey work in January, then surveyed the Falkland Islands in March and April.  She sailed through the Strait of Magellan into Chilean waters in June 1834, and arrived in Valparaiso on July 23.  The ship made her usual coastal surveys off Chili while Darwin trekked into the Chilean Andes.  After visiting the Chonos Archipelago in November 1834, she went back to the Chilean waters and continued to survey until July.  She then stopped briefly at Iquique and Callao, Peru, before sailing for the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador.

The ship arrived there on September 17^th, and though the expedition remained only one month, it was here that Darwin made the observations that proved the foundation for his theory of natural selection.  HMS BEAGLE left the Galapagos on October 20 bound for Tahiti.  For the rest of the journey the HMS BEAGLE’S main goal was to make chronometric observations (she had 22 chronometers on board).  Darwin’s main interest was in the remaining stops made by HMS BEAGLE in New Zealand, Australia, Tasmania, The Cocos Islands, Mauritius, and Cape Town.  She then stopped at St. Helena and Bahia in the Atlantic on her way home.

HMS BEAGLE finally arrived home at Falmouth on October 2, 1836.  Although Darwin’s Origin of Species was not published until 1859, his voyage in HMS BEAGLE (during which he had been badly subjected to that maritime problem, seasickness) laid the foundation for his theories of evolution and natural selection.  These profoundly affected the course of modern scientific thought.  This event in history is the main claim to fame for HMS BEAGLE.

Six months after her return, HMS BEAGLE was off again to Australia under the command of Captain John Lord Stokes, a veteran of the FitzRoy-Darwin voyage.  She surveyed the western coast between the Swan River (Perth) and Fitzroy River (named for his former commander).  She then sailed around the southeast corner of the continent and conducted surveys along both shores of the Bass Straight, and then in May 01 1839 sailed north to the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor. 

Her work in Australia done, HMS BEAGLE returned to England in 1843, after 18 years hard service to her nation and the world.  She was transferred out of the Royal Navy in 1845.  HMS BEAGLE ended her days by becoming a Preventive Service stationary BEAGLE WATCH VESSEL (renamed W.V.7 in 1863) that was moored at Pagelsham Pool on the coast of Essex.  She was sold and probably broken up in 1870.

The bulkhead kit of HMS BEAGLE that I am aware of is by Mamoli.  It is available from Nature Coast Hobbies, Model Expo and Tallships Unlimited via the Internet.  All offer the same price of $119.99.