French destroyer Espingole Espingole was a built for the French Navy in the late 1890s . The ship displaced and was armed with one gun , six guns , and two torpedo tube s . Commissioned in 1900 , she only saw a few years of service before running aground and sinking in 1903 off the Côte d ' Azur . Her captain was acquitted at his court - martial seven years later . Multiple salvage attempts failed and a legal dispute arising from the last attempt was not settled until 1926 . Design and description . " Espingole " had an overall length of , a beam of , and a maximum draft of . She displaced at deep load . The two triple - expansion steam engines , each driving one shaft , were designed to produce , using steam provided by two water - tube boilers . The ship had a designed speed of , but " Espingole " reached during her sea trials in August and September 1900 . The ship carried of coal , enough to give her a range of at . Her hull was subdivided by nine watertight transverse bulkheads . She had a crew of four officers and sixty enlisted men . " Espingole " carried a single gun forward of the bridge . The gun had a maximum range of and a rate of fire of five rounds per minute . The ship carried 375 rounds for the gun . She also mounted six Hotchkiss gun s , three on each broadside . The guns had a sustained rate of fire of seven rounds per minute and a maximum range of . She carried a total of 2 , 850 rounds of 47 mm ammunition . " Espingole " mounted two single torpedo tube s : one between the funnels and the other on the stern . Two reload torpedo es were also carried ; their air flasks , however , had to be charged before they could be used , a process that took several hours . The Modèle 1887 torpedo that they used had a warhead weight of . Construction and career . The ship was laid down in 1896 – 97 by Normand at their Le Havre shipyard , as the last of the four s . She was named after a French type of blunderbuss ; all of the ships in her class were named after weapons . " Espingole " was launched on 28 June 1900 and completed around September when she ran her speed trials . Construction costs were 1 , 690 , 994 francs . She was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in December and made a number of port visits in France , Corsica and French North Africa throughout 1901 . Her rudder was damaged after striking the bottom off Golfe - Juan and " Espingole " was under repair 3 – 27 September . In October 1901 , the 1st Battleship Division , under the command of Rear Admiral ( " contre - amiral " ) Leonce Caillard , consisting of the battleship s and , the armored cruiser , and escorted by " Espingole " and the destroyer , was ordered to proceed to the port of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos , then part by the Ottoman Empire . After Caillard landed two companies of marines that occupied the major ports of the island on 7 November , Sultan Abdul Hamid II agreed to enforce contracts made with French companies and to repay loans made by French banks . The ships made a number of port visits while they were in the Aegean , including the islands of Milos , Syros , and Tinos , in addition to the ports of Smyrna and Piraeus . The 1st Division returned to Toulon on 12 December . The ship was refitted from 3 to 17 April 1902 before she resumed her normal routine of port visits . Lieutenant ( " Lieutenant de vaisseau ( LV ) " ) Marcotte de Sainte - Marie relieved LV Langier in June and " Espingole " was refitted again from 13 November to 2 December . She made a port visit in early 1903 at Rochefort before resuming training . The ship struck a rock in Cavalaire Bay , off Cavalaire - sur - Mer , on 4 February 1903 after straying outside the channel , and ripped a hole in the bottom of the hull . Coal , ammunition , and two 47 mm guns were thrown overboard to lighten the ship and her sister ship attempted to pull her off . The hawser broke after only moving " Espingole " roughly , injuring two of " Hallebarde " s crewmen . " Hallebarde " then rescued " Espingole " s 62 - man crew before the ship sank at coordinates . LV Marcotte de Sainte - Marie was finally acquitted at his court - martial seven years after his ship ran aground . The initial salvage attempts were unsuccessful and the " Espingole " was struck off the naval register on 16 September . The navy sold her wreck at auction in December 1909 and decided to offer an escalating series of bonuses if the winner could refloat the ship and deliver it intact . The salvage company was no more successful and abandoned the effort after five months of work . The company claimed that the navy had disturbed the wreck and sued for 60 , 000 francs plus damages . The dispute was not settled until 3 March 1926 .