HMS Wager 1741
Marker: recorded wreck position (Age of Sail).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Wager | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1741 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Age of Sail | derived from year |
| Ship type | sixth-rate frigate, East Indiaman | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Grounding or wreck on rocks | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | United Kingdom | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Sea / ocean | Golfo de Penas | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Chile | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 3 km from land |
| Position | -47.6786, -75.0492 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Wager was a square-rigged sixth-rate Royal Navy ship of 28 guns. It 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. It 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 Wager became famous for the subsequent adventures of the survivors who found themselves marooned on the desolate Wager Island in the middle of a Patagonian winter, and in particular because of the Wager Mutiny that followed.
Diving & visiting
Cheap steered the Wager close to the coast of modern-day Chile. On 13 May 1741 at 9:00am, the carpenter went forward to inspect the chain plates. Whilst there he thought he caught a fleeting glimpse of land to the west. Lieutenant Baynes was also there but he saw nothing, and the sighting was not reported. Consequently, no one realised that Wager had entered a large, uncharted bay, the Gulf of Penas.
At 2:00pm land was positively sighted to the west and northwest and all hands were mustered to make sail and turn the ship to the southwest. During the operations that followed, Captain Cheap fell down the quarterdeck ladder, dislocated his shoulder, and was confined below.
The British arrival caused great alarm among the Spanish who extensively searched the Patagonian archipelagoes to cleanse them of any possible British presence. In the 1740s the viceroy of Peru and the governor of Chile converged in a project to advance the frontiers of the Spanish Empire in the Southeast Pacific and prevent the establishment of a British base. As a result of this plan the Juan Fernández Islands were settled and the fort of Tenquehuen established in Chonos Archipelago near Taitao Peninsula. This last fort was manned for a year and a half before being abandoned.
Location
- Recorded position: -47.6786, -75.0492 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Golfo de Penas
- Nearest coast: Chile
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 Wager (1739) (revision 1375273211), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck of Wager”, “Spanish response and fate of the wreck site”; 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
- Capitán Leonidas 1968 · 127 km
Browse more: South America wrecks · wrecks off Chile · Age of Sail