English: Profile of a fire boat wrecked on the shore in front of Saint-Malo. Approximate Traducation. A : Cale vessel filled with sand. B : First level of the boat filled with black powder with masonry above. C: Second level of boat containing 600 bombs. D : Third level boat with 50 barrels of explosives. E : Canal to conduct fire detonators and explosives. In addition, the ship was full of old guns.
A cross section of Admiral John Benbow's Machine ship “Vesuvius”, 1693, In 1693 the British Navy led by Admiral Benbow used a ship, imaginatively named the Vesuvius, laden with 300 tons of explosives, (other sources say 20,000 pounds of gunpowder) during an attack on the French port of St. Malo. The vessel was sailed in by a Captain Philips. The ship did not quite reach its target, became stuck on a rock and exploded “blowing the roofs of half the town”. But causing little loss of life. The capstan of the “machine vessel” was thrown several hundred yards and landed on an Inn destroying it.