HMS Superb was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy.

 

She had previously been Le Superbe, a 56-gun warship of the French Navy, until her capture off Lizard Point by HMS Kent in July 1710.

 

Commissioned into the Royal Navy in September 1710, HMS Superb served throughout Queen Anne's War and the War of the Quadruple Alliance, during which she participated in the destruction of the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718.

 

She was broken up in 1732.

 

Construction

 

Le Superbe was designed by Pierre Blaise Coulomb and constructed between August 1708 and March 1709 at Lorient, a French naval base on the coast of Brittany in north-west France.

 

She was launched on 12 December 1708 and measured 143 ft 6 in (43.74 m) along her gun deck, had a beam of 40 ft 2 in (12.24 m) and drew from 17 ft 0 in (5.18 m) at the bow, to 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) at the stern.[2] With a depth in the hold of 15 ft 6.5 in (4.737 m), she had a capacity of 1,020 23⁄94 tons (bm).

 

Career in Royal Navy

 

On 29 July 1710 Le Superbe was captured off The Lizard by HMS Kent. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Superb on 23 September 1710 and sailed under Commander, later Captain, William Elford.

 

In 1711 she passed to Captain James Moneypenny and was ordered to the Mediterranean. In September 1712, HMS Superb together with HMS Cornwall, Mary and Lion, assisted Admiral John Jennings with the landing of troops at Barcelona before being sent to Genoa with dispatches.

 

In May 1713 she sailed with HMS Ormonde from Sicily to Leghorn via Naples before being ordered home later that year. On 24 September 1716, while anchored in The Downs off Deal, Superb was blown off station in a violent storm. She returned without serious damage, however, on 3 October.

 

In 1717 HMS Superb was in the Baltic commanded by Captain George Sanders but by the middle of the following year she was back in the Mediterranean after a refit at Chatham.

 

Under Captain Strensham Master, and attached to George Byng's fleet, Superb spent the next few months cruising and delivering dispatches before playing an active role in the Battle of Cape Passaro.