HMS Wager (1739)
| History | |
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.svg){kind=small} Great Britain
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| Name: | Wager |
| Owner: | Hugh Raymond |
| Operator: | East India Company |
| Builder: | Buxton, Rotherhithe |
| Launched: | 12 March 1734 |
| Fate: | Sold to the Royal Navy in 1739 |
 Royal NavyGreat Britain
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| Name: | HMS Wager |
| Cost: | £3,912 2s 1½d |
| Acquired: | Purchased on 21 November 1739 |
| Commissioned: | December 1739 |
| Fate: | Wrecked off Chile on 14 May 1741 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Sixth rate |
| Tons burthen: | 551, or 558 82⁄94 (bm) |
| Length: | 123 ft (37.5 m) (gundeck); 101 ft 4 1⁄8 in (30.9 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft 2 3⁄8 in (9.8 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 14 ft 4 in (4.4 m) |
| Sail plan: | Ship rig |
| Complement: |
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| Armament: | 28 guns |
HMS Wager was a square-rigged sixth-rate Royal Navy ship of 28 guns. She was built as an East Indiaman in about 1734 and made two voyages to India for the East India Company before the Royal Navy purchased her in 1739. She formed part of a squadron under Commodore George Anson and was wrecked on the south coast of Chile on 14 May 1741. The wreck of the Wager became famous for the subsequent adventures of the survivors who found themselves marooned on a desolate island in the middle of a Patagonian winter, and in particular because of the Wager Mutiny that followed.
Wager was an East Indiaman, an armed trading vessel built mainly to accommodate large cargoes of goods from the Far East. As an Indiaman she carried 30 guns and had a crew of 98.
Under Captain Charles Raymond she sailed from the Downs on 13 February 1735, arriving in Madras on 18 July and returning to England via St Helena in July 1736. She made her second and final run for the Company to India in 1738, sailing via the Cape of Good Hope to Madras and Bengal, and returning to the Downs on 27 August 1739.
The Admiralty purchased Wager from Mr J. Raymond on 21 November 1739, and rated her as a 28-gun sixth-rate. The Admiralty bought her to fill in a squadron under Commodore George Anson that would attack Spanish interests on the Pacific west coast of South America. Her role was to carry additional stores of small arms, ball and powder to arm shore raiding parties. It was apt that she carried the name of the principal sponsor of the voyage, Admiral Sir Charles Wager.
She was fitted for naval service at Deptford Dockyard between 23 November 1739 and 23 May 1740 at a cost of £7,096.2.4d, and was registered as a sixth-rate on 22 April 1740, being established with 120 men and 28 guns.
Anson's expedition to the Pacific in August 1740 comprised six warships and two transports, all manned by 1854 men. The Navy commissioned Wager under Captain Dandy Kidd, who died before the ship reached Cape Horn; Lieutenant David Cheap was promoted to captain (acting). The squadron rounded Cape Horn in terrible weather, which scattered the ships of the squadron. Wager became separated and then needed to make her rendezvous. Unfortunately, she turned north before she had sailed sufficiently far to the west, and in foul weather closed the coast of modern-day Chile.
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Wikipedia