The Sea Horse had an interesting history:
She was built in 1782
in Gravesend for the Hudson Bay Company. The
ship continued in their employment for ten years, trading with the Native
Americans, after which she was sold to a London ship-owner, employed as a
Mediterranean merchantman and re-launched with letters of mark as a privateer.
The ship was soon captured by French "men of war" in 1795 and carried into
Cadiz. She was then renamed the Principe Fernando and fitted out for a voyage
to Lima. The ship was recaptured in 1800 by British privateers and later sold
in Guernsey. The new owner employed her as a troop transport ship for a couple
of years until peace "broke out" in 1802. The ship was then fitted out as
a South Seas whaler for a couple of years, until war broke out again when she
was re-employed as a troop transport. She remained a troop transport until she
was wrecked in 1816.
Three vessels (the Sea Horse, Boadicea and Lord Melville) were chartered to bring a large number of troops (and their families) back to Cork in Ireland after the Napoleonic Wars. They sailed in company and arrived off SE Ireland during a gale on 30 January 1816.
In January 1816, the 2nd Battalion of the 59th (2nd Nottinghamshire) Regiment of Foot embarked at Ramsgate on chartered ships Sea Horse and Lord Melville. Five companies of troops, 16 officers and 287 men, embarked on Sea Horse along with 33 women and 8 children. The vessels sailed to the Downs on 25 January 1816, where they were joined by the brig Boadicea carrying 290 troops, and 34 women and children of the 82nd Regiment of Foot (Prince of Wales's Volunteers). The ships departed at 11:00 on 28 January and headed west along the English Channel and entered the Irish Sea at 5 pm.
The weather had deteriorated during the day, and at 4 pm on 29 January, Sea Horse's mate, John Sullivan, who was the only member of that ship's officers who was familiar with the Irish coast around Cork, fell from the foremast and was fatally injured and died three hours later. The captain, Gibbs, was unable to locate the Kinsale lights, and by this time the weather had deteriorated to a gale. At 6 am on 30 January, the ship attempted to reach the sanctuary of Waterford harbour, but at 10:30 am the foretop was brought down, severely injuring a seaman. Tramore Bay is just a few miles west of the entrance to Waterford - but it is a sandy bay with no shelter in an onshore wind. The crew prevented the ship from being driven onto the north arm of Tramore Bay by releasing her three anchors, but the sea was breaking over her from stem to stern, and by noon the anchors were dragging. The mizzen and main mast were cut free, and the rudder was destroyed by the mountainous seas. The ship ran aground on a shoal a mile from the shore at the eastern end of Tramore Bay [near the Rinnashark Channel] in massive seas and started breaking up at 1 pm.
The ship's boats had been destroyed and assistance from the shore was impossible in the seas, and only 30 men, including the captain and two seamen, survived from the 394 men, women and children on board.
The other ships also faced challenges: the Lord Melville failed to clear Kinsale Head [headland further west] on 30 January and was driven onto a shoal 300 metres from the shore. However, the ship did not break up. A boat was launched containing four women, one child and eight men. This boat foundered and only one person survived, but the twelve people killed were the only deaths from Lord Melville, the remainder of the passengers survived and left the ship as the gale subsided overnight.
However Boadicea was less fortunate. Although the ship rounded Kinsale Head, she was driven onto the shore at Courtmacsherry Bay, and broke up. About 100 people managed to scramble onto a large rock, but 190 died of the 324 aboard.
In total 566 perished - a major disaster.
Further details of the voyage and loss are available on several websites: report and report.