![]() Arrival of Roebuck in Shark Bay, from a painting by John Charles Allcot (1925)
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History | |
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Name | HMS Roebuck |
Builder | Snellgrove |
Launched | 17 April 1690 |
Fate | Sank, February 1701 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Fifth-rate |
Tons burthen | 292 tons bm |
Length | 96 ft (29 m) |
Beam | 25 ft 6 in (7.77 m) |
Armament | 26 guns |
Service record | |
Commanders: | William Dampier |
HMS[1] Roebuck was a fifth-rate warship in the Royal Navy which, under the command of William Dampier, carried the first British scientific expedition to Australia in 1699. It sank in early 1701. The wreck of the ship has since been located by a team from the Western Australian Maritime Museum at a site on the coast of Ascension Island where it foundered more than 300 years ago.