The Sailing Frigate: A History in Ship Models

170 Pages·2013·19.23 MB·English

by  Robert Gardiner

Bow of the Mordaunt, an ex-privateer bought into the Navy in 1683; typical of the small
SRL0004
two-deckers that carried out cruiser duties in the Restoration period.
A cutaway model of the frigate Pique of 1834. See pages 120-121.
ZBAO430

Copyright © Robert Gardiner 2012
First published in Great Britain in 2012 by
Seaforth Publishing
An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street, Barnsley
S Yorkshire S70 2AS
www.seaforthpublishing.com
Email [email protected]
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP data record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978 1 84832 160 1
PDF ISBN: 978 1 78346 602 3
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 78383 068 8
PRC ISBN: 978 1 78346 835 5
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Acknowledgements
Doug McCarthy and Emma Lefley of the National Maritime Museum’s Picture
Library handled the large and complex photo orders for this book with efficiency
and courtesy, while Josh Akin made a great job of the demanding scanning
requirements.
On the curatorial front, the author is grateful to Simon Stephens for access to
models in the Museum’s store, while Jeremy Michell and Andrew Choong of the
Brass Foundry were very helpful with background research on the Admiralty
Collection of draughts.
Finally, we must thank Major Grant Walker for permission to reproduce
photographs of models in the US Naval Academy Museum that have no parallel
in any other collection.
References
Footnotes have been avoided in this book, but for readers interested in pursuing
the subject in more detail, there is a file of additional information, sources for
quotations and the like, available on the Seaforth Publishing website at:
http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/The-Sailing-Frigate/p/3699/
Further details of all the National Maritime Museum’s ship models can be
found on their Collections website at:
http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;collectionReference=subject-
90254;authority=subject-90254
Searching by the SLR number quoted in the captions to this book will turn up
a description of the model and any available photographs.
Contents
1: PREHISTORY 1600-1689
Lord Torrington’s Specification
2: GUERRE DE COURSE 1689-1713
Lord Danby’s Maggot
3: THE ESTABLISHMENT ERA 1706-1748
The Frigate about 1720
Development of the Stern in Establishment Sixth Rates
4: THE ‘TRUE FRIGATE’ 1748-1778
Development of the Head
The Frigate about 1760
Structure
5: THE HEAVY FRIGATE 1778-1815
Coppering and Carronades
The Frigate about 1795
Filling in the Waist
Ship’s Boats
Sweeps and Sweep Ports
6: THE LAST GENERATION 1815-1850
The Frigate about 1825
Round and Elliptical Sterns
Inside a Frigate
POSTSCRIPT
FURTHER READING
1: Prehistory
1600-1689
O
ver the centuries the term ‘frigate’ has carried a myriad of meanings,
more often vague and suggestive rather than denoting a specific ship-
type. The word itself is of Mediterranean provenance, and it is a reasonable
assumption that the first vessels in northern Europe to be so described had the
same origins: certainly, the first documented examples are privateers that
operated out of the Spanish-held areas of the Netherlands as early as the 1590s.
These were small, fast and lightly armed, characteristics that were to remain a
common denominator of just about any ship called a ‘frigate’ whenever and
wherever the description was applied.
To track the long and convoluted history of the term is more relevant to the
lexicographer than the naval historian, and the aim of this book is to follow the
evolution of a concept – a specialist cruising warship, not intended to fight in the
line of battle but powerful enough for independent action in virtually every other
naval role, in all weathers and on any ocean. These would encompass
reconnaissance and other fleet support functions, both the attack and defence of
trade, blockade and inshore operations, patrolling sea-lanes and suppressing
piracy and smuggling. By the Nelson era the frigate had become the navy’s
maid-of-all-work, the most flexible and broadly useful ship-type in the fleet and
(with the exception of small craft) the most numerous category on the navy list.
On the basis of its decorative scheme this model is usually dated to just after 1660. ‘The
SLR0368