HMS Lutine 1799

About the wreck

Lutine was a frigate which served in both the French Navy and the Royal Navy. She was launched by the French in 1779. The ship passed to British control in 1793 and was taken into service as HMS Lutine. She sank among the West Frisian Islands during a storm in 1799.

She was built as a French Magicienne-class frigate with 32 guns, and was launched at Toulon in 1779. During the French Revolution, Lutine came under French Royalist control. On 18 December 1793, she was one of sixteen ships handed over to a British fleet at the end of the Siege of Toulon, to prevent her being captured by the French Republicans. In 1795, she was rebuilt by the British as a fifth-rate frigate with 38 guns. She served thereafter in the North Sea, where she was part of the blockade of Amsterdam.

Lutine sank during a storm at Vlieland in the West Frisian Islands on 9 October 1799, whilst carrying a large shipment of gold. Shifting sandbanks disrupted salvage attempts, and the majority of the cargo has never been recovered. Lloyd's of London has preserved her salvaged bell – the Lutine Bell – which is now used for ceremonial purposes at their headquarters in London.

Diving & visiting

The site of the wreck, the Vlie, was notorious for its strong currents and the danger of storms forcing ships onto the shore. The area is composed of sandbanks and shoals, which the currents continuously shift, with channels through them: in 1666, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, Admiral Holmes had managed to penetrate these shoals and start Holmes's Bonfire, surprising the Dutch who had considered the shoals impassable. The depth of water also constantly changes, and this has caused much of the difficulty in salvage attempts.

Lutine was wrecked in a shallow channel called the IJzergat, which has now completely disappeared, between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling.

1799–1801: An 1876 account reports that fishermen-with the sanction of the Dutch government in return for two-thirds of the recovered salvage-for a year and a half prior to 1801 recovered £80,000 of Bullion consisting of 58 bars of gold; 35 bars of silver; 42,000 Spanish silver pistoles; 212 half-pistoles, 179 Spanish gold pistoles; with smaller quantities of quarter; eighth and sixteenth pistoles. A 1911 account reports that, besides the gold, silver and pistoles listed above, there was also recovered 41,697 (not 42,000) Spanish Silver pistoles; 81 double Louis d'or; 138 single Louis d'or and 4 English guineas with an estimated value of £83,000 pounds sterling.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Lutine (1793) (revision 1355347015), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Site of the wreck”, “Initial salvage attempts 1799–1938”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.

Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby wrecks

• Palmwood shipwreck 33 km
• HMS E47 41 km
• SM U-7 1915 · 67 km
• HMS Prince George 72 km
• HMS Esk 1940 · 82 km
• HMS Ivanhoe 1940 · 85 km

Browse more: Europe wrecks · wrecks off Netherlands · North Sea · Age of Sail

Further reading

• Wikipedia: HMS Lutine (1793)
• Wikidata Q1552963