92-gun three-decker Prins Willem Last year, Cornelis Evertsen, 42 years old, Lieutnant-Admiral of Zealand has replaced Tromp as Lieutnant-Admiral General. He is known as both gallant and skilful, and also considered as politically neutral, in contrast with Tromp, an active Orangist. Present time requires consensus behind Prince Willem for a war against France is considered as short-term unavoidable by every observer. ¤ Moreover, Tromp is certainly known as competent but a

Cornelis Marteenszoon Tromp The Staten-Generaal, that is the assembly of senate and house of representatives, has decided to build thirty-six ships to replace the core of the fleet built in the 1660s. This decision results, first, from the French threat, on land as at sea, and, second, from the decay of the ships hastily built in the 1660s, many having already been broken up. ¤ As everybody knows, Duquesne defeated Ruyter in the Mediterranean sea in 1676, and D'Estrées defe

Edmund Halley, an astronomer and polymath aged 35, already famed for quite a few achievements in astronomy and meteorology, presents two inventions at the Royal Society : (1) a diving bell ; (2) a damped compass. Diving Bell Halley's Diving Bell & Diving Suit Halley has been thinking about a diving bell meant to working underwater for a while. Two years ago, he produced a paper describing a bell moving on its four wheels on sea bottom, fitted with an air intake so as to main

Anne-Hilarion de Costentin, comte de Tourville Many ship constructions have already been ordered since the opening of this war between...

Jean-Baptiste Colbert, 61 years old, Secretary-of-State for the Navy since 1669, has established three schools of naval architecture for...

Brest Founded in 1631 as a military dockyard by Archbishop and Prime Minister Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu (†1642), the port of...

Pierre Arnoul A distinguished naval administrator, Pierre Arnoul, aged 28, is held responsible for a shipwreck so ousted from his...

Joachim d’Alencé, an astronomer, publishes the first release of an annual ephemeris, the ‘ Connoissance des Temps' .   He has worked   on...

Henry Winstantley Henry Winstantley, 54 years old, an engineer and a painter, lights the lighthouse he has built at his own expense on...

William Phips William Phipps or Phips, aged 36, originally a shipwright before becoming a complete ship captain and a famous treasure...

Edmund Halley Edmund Halley, an astronomer and polymath aged 30, presents at the Royal Society a map of the Trade Winds also known as Easterlies. As for the Atlantic ocean, they have been known by the Portuguese since the beginning of the exploration, that is in the first half of the 15th century. As for the Pacific ocean, this is Andrés de Urdaneta (†1568) who brought them to light in 1565 and plotted a map for the Manila galleon route between the Philippines and Acapulco.

Last year, a war broke out between Algiers and France at Dey Baba Hassan’s initiative. It implicitly involves the whole Barbary Coast, so the deys of Tripoli and of Tunis as well. This is a weird escalation from the usual tensions provoked by the Barbary pirates against shipping – a lasting plague. From time to time, an European nation retaliates by destroying a few pirate ships. The last expedition was a British one : with some success for just a while, Admiral John Narbor

Anthony Deane, naval architect expert to the Surveyor of the Navy, and Samuel Pepys, kingpin of the Admiralty, both Members of...

On the 11th of May, thirteen French warships run aground on the reefs of an isolated small archipelago in the West Indies. This is the final act of the Franco-Dutch war which has seen, after the series of setbacks suffered in the North sea in 1672-74, a number of naval victories of the French against the Dutch in the Mediterranean sea, then in Africa at Gorée island, and then in the Caribbean sea. The campaign in the West Indies has been successful so far and Admiral Jean II

The United Provinces and France have been at war for five years. They have been struggling for ruling the seas while the Royal Navy has fallen third. A key character, Samuel Pepys, 44 years old, convinces his peers to initiate an unexpected recovery through an extraordinary investment. Samuel Pepys A member of the Royal Society and positioned as the mainstay at the Admiralty, he became Secretary of Admiralty in 1673 and, the same year, a Member of Parliament. His influence

A new ordinance by Jean-Baptiste Colbert creates the Caisse des Invalides meant to rescuing the wounded mariners. Simultaneously, a...

World Map by John Seller John Seller, 39 years old, a compass maker and a writer, already famous in the world of navigation for his handbook entitled Practical Navigation (1669), newly appointed as the Hydrographer to King Charles II, publishes the first volume of a collection of charts and of sailing instructions named The English Pilot . This is a very useful work, if far from being original. One must say that many Seller’s charts actually are Dutch ones copied with English

Jean-Baptiste Colbert The late steep rise of the French navy requires hands aboard the warships in unheard-of quantities. The French...

Anthony Deane, 37 years old, Master Shipwright at Portsmouth dockyard since 1668, publishes his Doctrine for Naval Architecture . Anthony Deane Eight years ago, this atypical future master shipwright won an influential patron, and a friend, in Samuel Pepys, of the same age, Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, himself under the patronage of Admiral Edward Montagu, earl of Sandwich. Deane impressed Pepys for, first he had developed a vision of

Jean Picard, a priest, an astronomer and a geodesist, aged 49, has measured an arc of meridian between Paris and Amiens, hence the radius and the circumference of the earth by extrapolation. He is a pupil of Astronomer Pierre Gassendi (†1655), who was also a priest and a philosopher, and as of 1623 a promoter of heliocentricism, ten years before the sentence against Galileo Galilei (†1642). Picard is also one of the 21 first members of the Académie Royale des Sciences  founde