Quote:
Originally Posted by Rain Man
When I first read this, I thought it said, "Isles of Sicily". I was thinking they must've either been the worst navigators ever or the 'badly off course' was a big understatement.
And thousands of sailors died? How many crew were on these ships? If only four ships went down I wouldn't have guessed the casualty count to be in the thousands.
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The Admiral's ship, a 90 gun ship of the line, was 800 crewmembers by itself, and went down with all hands. Estimates of deaths were 1,400 to 2,000.
EDIT: Further to this, the HMS Victory, obviously launched much later than the timeframe of the incident at Scilly Isles, was a 104 gun ship of the line with a normal complement of 850 sailors.
The admiral's ship, presumably being in the van, was the first to go down, as it hit the rocks before any other, and reportedly sank in 3-4 minutes, leaving very little time for the men to react, and thus most/all hands were lost. Three other ships were unable to react swiftly enough to avoid the same fate.