The Sloop of War by Ian

Author:Ian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027150; HISTORY / Military / Naval
ISBN: 9781848322974
Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
Published: 2014-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Fig 10-11. In his great work Architectura Navalis Mercatoria of 1768 the Swedish naval architect F H Chapman includes this plan of a small frigate, the lines of which bear a close resemblance to the tiny barque longue in the previous illustration.

Fig 10-12. Perspective projection of the vessel at Fig 10-10 which shows the very real problem of using sweeps while trying to fight the ship; if the crew were to sit to row, the scenario would become totally impossible. Author

A vessel like this would have avoided any major gunnery duel and would have used her speed, under sail, oars or both, to escape encounter. She might well have been used as an aviso (advice boat), for reconnaissance and surveillance, or as a dispatch-carrier. The remarkably fine entry and run are testament to her light displacement. Her midship section seems to foreshadow those laid out by F H Chapman, the great Swedish naval architect, 70 years later14 but also conforms to the same sort of section shown in a Danish sloop of about 1660, a good example of diffusion (Fig 10-11).

The difficulty of mixing seated oarsmen with carriage guns suggests that, on these vessels at least, the French stood to row. This beautiful little vessel retains the grace and style of a large open rowing boat (Fig 10-12). Her extreme lines may indicate that the plan represents a proposal, and it is possible that other vessels of this same category may have looked different. At the time she was built, if it was in the late 1680s, craft such as these no longer existed on the other side of the English Channel. England had been at peace since 1673 and had no need to spend on ‘defence’. When in the 1690s the English government wished to acquire such vessels, they were built to heavier scantlings with more robust lines, even though they were similarly armed. Unfortunately they were slow. Not until the Cruizer class of 1732 did the British produce sloops of such an attractive appearance and boat-like proportions. No rig accompanies the Danish plan, but there is a table of spars for a similar but slightly larger vessel that provides a good idea of its layout. The plan does indicate that she had two masts and, true to the Biscay rig, her mainmast is just behind the mid-point between her stem and sternpost. Unlike the other examples she does not carry a third mast and in this respect she resembles the English sloops. Yet she may have raised a third mast on occasion as most probably was done with the English sloops, if required to make a long passage.15

Another and similar French vessel, Le Brillant, although slightly larger, was captured by the English in 1696 and was used by them as an advice boat until 1698 when she was sold. The rapid sketch of her by Van de Velde the younger (Fig 10-13) supplies some interesting information. First as to rig, points of note include the use of a

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