HMS Invincible 1758
Marker: recorded wreck position (Age of Sail).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Invincible | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1758 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Age of Sail | derived from year |
| Ship type | third-rate | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom, France | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Royal Navy, French Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Sea / ocean | English Channel | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | England | official dataset |
| Position | 50.7396, -1.0386 | Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3) |
| Protected Wreck | List entry 1000052 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1980-09-01 | Historic England |
| Restricted area | 3.14 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | SZ 67933 93771 | Historic England |
About the wreck
Invincible was originally a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy launched in October 1744. Captured on 14 May 1747, she was taken into Royal Navy service as the third rate HMS Invincible. She was wrecked in 1758 after hitting a sandbank. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.
Diving & visiting
This is a designated Protected Wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Under the Act, diving on or otherwise interfering with the wreck inside its restricted area requires a licence; see the Historic England list entry for details.
The site of the wreck was rediscovered by a fisherman in 1979 and was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 30 September 1980. In 1996 Amer Ved grounded at the wrecksite, although it is not clear whether or not this resulted in damage to the remains. In 2013, the wreck was placed on Historic England's (then called English Heritage) list of ten most at risk heritage sites due to parts of the ship being exposed by changing seabed levels. In July 2016 it was announced that £2 million of the fines imposed for the Libor banking scandal would be used to fund an excavation of the wreck site.
Location
- Recorded position: 50.7396, -1.0386 (Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: English Channel
- Nearest coast: England
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Invincible (1747) (revision 1365646855), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck site”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Protected Wreck data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- Mary Rose 1545 · 5 km
- HMS Royal George 1782 · 6 km
- HMS A1 1904 · 8 km
- Hazardous 13 km
- HMS Boxer 1918 · 16 km
- Unknown Wreck off Thorness Bay 22 km
Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off England · English Channel · Age of Sail