French ship Aquilon (1789)

Aquilon was a Téméraire-class 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy.

Scale model of Achille, sister ship of French ship Aquilon (1789), on display at the Musée national de la Marine in Paris.
History
France
Name	Aquilon
Namesake	Aquilo
Builder	Rochefort
Laid down	September 1787
Launched	8 June 1789
Acquired	June 1790
Captured	2 August 1798
Great Britain
Name	Aboukir
Acquired	2 August 1798
Fate	Broken up in Plymouth in 1802
General characteristics [1]
Class and type	Téméraire-class ship of the line
Displacement	1,966 tonnes 3,260 tonnes fully loaded
Length	55.87 metres (183.3 ft) (172 pied)
Beam	14.90 metres (48 ft 11 in)
Draught	7.26 metres (23.8 ft) (22 pied)
Propulsion	Up to 2,485 m2 (26,750 sq ft) of sails
Armament	74 guns: Lower gundeck: 28 × 36-pounder long guns Upper gundeck: 30 × 18-pounder long guns Forecastle and Quarter deck: 16 × 8-pounder long guns 4 × 36-pounder carronades
Armour	Timber

She served off Italy in Vice-Admiral Brueys' squadron under Captain Antoine-René Thévenard, and took part in the Battle of the Nile, where she fought HMS Vanguard, HMS Minotaur and HMS Theseus. She was captured and recommissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Aboukir.^[2]