Ontario
| |
History | |
---|---|
Great Britain | |
Name | HMS Ontario |
Namesake | Lake Ontario |
Owner | Provincial Marine |
Operator | Royal Navy |
Builder | Carleton Island Dockyard |
Laid down | October 1779 |
Launched | 10 May 1780 |
Fate | 31 October 1780 sank in Lake Ontario during a storm |
Status | Shipwreck discovered in June, 2008 at more than 500 ft (150 m) depth |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Sixth rate |
Tons burthen | 226 tons[1] |
Length | 80 ft (24 m) |
Beam | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
Sail plan | Two-masted snow |
Complement | 130 believed lost |
Armament | 22 cannons |
HMS Ontario was a British warship that sank in a storm in Lake Ontario on 31 October 1780, during the American Revolutionary War.[2] She was a 22-gun snow, and, at 80 feet (24 m) in length, the largest British warship on the Great Lakes at the time.[2] The shipwreck was discovered in 2008. Ontario was found largely intact and very well preserved in the cold water. The wreck discoverers asserted that "the 80-foot sloop of war is the oldest shipwreck and the only fully intact British warship ever found in the Great Lakes."[2]