HMS Speedy & El Gamo, 6th May 1801

[carojon]

As a slight detour to my current main project, the Battle of Camperdown in 1:700 scale, whilst working on the small ships for both fleets in that battle I thought I would take the opportunity to add in a few extra models to fill in some gaps to my wider small ship collection whilst also taking my first tentative steps into the world of 3D printed models.

The action fought by Lord Thomas Cochrane and the crew of HMS Speedy in the diminutive little 14-gun British brig against the 32-gun xebec-frigate, ‘El Gamo’ (Fallow Deer in English) is a classic David & Goliath fight where the odds were definitely defied in the outcome and saw the award of the Naval General Service medal with clasp ‘Speedy, 6th May 1801’ in 1847 to surviving members who took part.

However due to the lack of suitable models I had put this action on the back-burner, that was until Henry Turner released his 3D prints of HMS Speedy and his Xebec-Frigate which I have, with a few minor additions, that sees them fitted out with Warlord masts, ratlines and boats been able to produce two satisfying representations of these two particular ships.

As always, if you would like to know more then just follow the link to JJ’s

https://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2024/05/hms-speedy-and-el-gamo-6th-may-1801.html

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

[willz]

Cheers JJ an excellent read.

[Darkest Star Games]

Speedy certainly had an incredible career with those absolutely audacious captains!  I’m a little surprised with how they threw themselves at such out-of-odds encounters, let alone won/survived them.  That was a great read, thank you. (not to mention very nicely done models!)

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

If I win in the Sophie, will they finally make me post?

Mick Hayman
Margate and New Orleans

[carojon]

Hi Chaps,

Thanks for your comments caps.

I steered away from the O’Brian fictional account in Master and Commander purely to illustrate that fact is often more compelling than fiction although I love ‘Lucky Jack Aubrey and the Sophie’ as much as any other age of sail aficionado.

As for Speedy’s captains and their undoubted bravado, I think it indicates the tide of war that I covered in the post, in that after seven years of war with France, Spain and Holland on the back of the recent American War, the Royal Navy was asserting the dominance it had already experienced from the Battle of the Saintes to the Battle of the Nile and its enemies were feeling that assertion of dominance by this period, similar to the land war experience when Napoleon trounced all European armies he encountered from 180o to 1807 (Marengo to Friedland), with Wellington declaring, as he prepared to take a British army into Portugal in 1808, that he was of the opinion that most European General Officers Commanding and their armies were already half beaten before they took to the field of battle.

The British would receive their correction at the hands of some very large American frigates in 1812 that would cause them to be a bit more circumspect when the situation demanded, just as the Imperial French Army that met Wellington’s Anglo-Portuguese in Spain would do in the same year after the Battle of Salamanca.

JJ

http://jjwargames.blogspot.co.uk

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