French ship Polonais (1808)

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Polonais and French ship Glorieux.

Scale model of Achille, sister ship of French ship Polonais (1808), on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.
History
France
Name	Polonais
Namesake	Poland
Ordered	25 February 1804
Builder	Nantes
Laid down	4 July 1804
Launched	27 May 1808
Commissioned	25 July 1808
Stricken	1822
General characteristics
Class and type	Téméraire class ship of the line
Displacement	2966 tonnes 5260 tonnes fully loaded
Length	55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied)
Beam	14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in)
Draught	7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied)
Propulsion	Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails
Armament	74 guns: Lower gundeck: 28 x 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 x 18-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 x 8-pounder long guns 4 x 36-pdr carronades
Armour	Timber

The Polonais was a Téméraire class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

First named Glorieux, she was renamed on 23 February 1807.

In 1809, under captain Mequet, she departed Lorient with Troude's squadron, bound for the Caribbean. The squadron also comprised Hautpoult and Courageux. On 29 March, the ships arrived at the Saintes and landed reinforcements.

On 29 May, Polonais and Courageux reached Cherbourg, along with 7 prizes captured on the way. Hautpoult had been captured in the Action of 14–17 April 1809.

In April 1814, at the Bourbon Restoration, she was renamed Lys; captained by Troude, she ferried Louis XVIII back to France. She was briefly renamed Polonais during the Hundred Days, and back to Lys again.

From 1822, she was used as a storing hulk, and she was broken up in Brest the 1825.

Sources and references

• Ships of the line
• Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours 1 1671 - 1870. ISBN 978-2-9525917-0-6. OCLC 165892922.