Bonetta-class sloop

Last updated
Class overview
OperatorsNaval Ensign of Great Britain (1707-1800).svg  Royal Navy
Preceded by Cruizer (1752)class
Built1755-1756
In commission1756-1778
Completed3
Lost1
General characteristics (common design)
Type Sloop-of-war
Tons burthen220 4394 bm
Length
  • 85 ft 10 in (26.2 m) (gundeck)
  • 70 ft 0 in (21.3 m) (keel)
Beam24 ft 4 in (7.4 m)
Depth of hold10 ft 10 in (3.30 m) (vessels without platform in hold)
Sail plan Snow rig
Complement100
Armament
  • 10 × 6-pounder (short) guns;
  • also 12 x ½-pounder swivel guns

The Bonetta class was a class of three sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy between 1755 and 1756. All three were built by contract with commercial builders to a common design prepared by Thomas Slade, the Surveyor of the Navy.

All three were ordered on 9 July 1755, assigned names on 29 July 1755, and were built as two-masted snow-rigged vessels.

Vessels

NameOrderedBuilderLaunchedNotes
Bonetta 9 July 1755Henry Bird,
Globe Stairs, Rotherhithe
4 February 1756Sold 1 November 1776 at Woolwich.
Merlin 9 July 1755John Quallett,
Rotherhithe
20 March 1756Captured 23 August 1778 by the French
in the Mediterranean.
(Recaptured 26 August 1780 by British privateer Fame and burnt).
Spy 9 July 1755Robert Inwood, Rotherhithe 3 February 1756Sold 3 September 1773 at Sheerness.

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