Class overview | |
---|---|
Name | Decoy class |
Operators | ![]() |
Planned | 3 |
Completed | 3 |
Lost | 3 |
General characteristics [1] | |
Type | Cutter |
Tons burthen | 20089⁄94 (bm) |
Length |
|
Beam | 26 ft 0 in (7.9 m) |
Depth of hold | 11 ft 0 in (3.4 m) |
Propulsion | Sails |
Sail plan | Cutter |
Complement | 60 |
Armament | 10 × 18-pounder carronades |
The Decoy class was a class of three cutters of the Royal Navy. William Rule designed the class. Two were lost in wartime; they grounded, enabling the French to capture them. One was lost to bad weather.
Citations
References
Uranie was a 44-gun frigate of the French Navy, lead ship of her two-vessel class.
Var was a corvette of the French Navy, launched in 1806 as the name-ship of her class of flutes. She served as a storeship until the British captured her in 1809. She became the transport HMS Chichester, and was wrecked in 1811.
HMS Staunch was a Royal Navy 12-gun Archer-class gun-brig, built by Benjamin Tanner and launched in 1804 at Dartmouth, Devon. She served in the Indian Ocean and participated in the action of 18 September 1810 before she foundered with the loss of all hands in 1811.
HMS Carnation was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer class brig-sloop built by Taylor at Bideford and launched in 1807. After the French brig Palinure captured her, she was burned by the French to prevent her recapture.
HMS Olympia was an Adonis-class schooner of the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic War. She was built at Bermuda using Bermudan cedar and completed in 1806. In March 1811 the French captured her, but the British recaptured her in October. During her career, she served as far afield as Buenos Aires, Île Bourbon, and Cape of Good Hope. The Admiralty sold her in 1815.
HMS Foxhound was an 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop built by King at Dover and launched in 1806. She participated in the battle of the Basque Roads in early 1809 and foundered later that year.
HMS Snapper was a Royal Navy Ballahoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda, and she was launched in 1804. She cruised for some seven years, sharing in several captures of merchant vessels and taking some herself, before a French privateer captured her.
HMS Cuckoo was a Royal Navy Cuckoo-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. She was built by James Lovewell at Great Yarmouth and launched in 1806. Like many of her class and the related Ballahoo-class schooners, she succumbed to the perils of the sea relatively early in her career.
HMS Swift has been the name of numerous ships of the Royal Navy:
HMS Mandarin was a Dutch gun-brig of 178 tons burthen (bm) and 12 guns that the British had captured at Amboyna in February 1810. She served as part of a four-vessel flotilla that captured Banda Neira. She was wrecked in November 1810.
HMS Dominica was the French privateer schooner J(T?)opo L'Oeil that the British captured in 1807 in the Leeward Islands. She took part in one inconclusive single-ship action before she foundered in 1809.
HMS Orpheus was a 32–gun fifth rate frigate of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1780, and served for more than a quarter of a century, before she was wrecked in 1807.
HMS Delight was a British Royal Navy 16-gun brig-sloop of the Seagull class launched in June 1806, six months late. She grounded off Reggio Calabria in January 1808 and was burnt to prevent her being salvaged.
The French brig Carlotta was a brig-rigged corvetta-cannoniera or, corvetta-brig, of 10 guns, launched in 1807 at Venice as Fiamma that served the French Navy as Carlotta. HMS Belle Poule captured her in 1810 and the British Royal Navy took her into service as HMS Carlotta. She was wrecked in 1812.
HMS Alert was launched in 1793 for the Royal Navy. In May 1794 the French Navy captured her and took her into service as Alerte. A few months later the Royal Navy destroyed her.
HMS Vautour was 16-gun brig-sloop of the British Royal Navy. The navy captured her from the French on the stocks in 1809 and commissioned her in 1810. She foundered in October 1813.
HMS Elizabeth was a French privateer schooner that the Royal Navy captured in 1805 and took into service under her existing name. She participated in an engagement and a campaign that earned her crews clasps to the Naval General Service Medal. She was lost with all hands in 1814 when she capsized in the West Indies.
HMS Decoy was launched in 1810. She participated in the capture of several small French privateers, captured or recaptured a number of merchant vessels, and captured a number of smuggling vessels. The French captured her in 1814.
HMS Racer was a Decoy-class cutter launched at Sandgate on 24 April 1810. Lieutenant Daniel Miller commissioned her, probably in May. The French captured her on 28 October when she stranded on the French coast.
HMS Rapide was a British schooner of unknown name that the French captured in 1806. The French Navy took her into service as Villaret, but renamed her Rapide. She then became the model for a class of advice boats (avisos). The British Royal Navy captured her in 1808 in the West Indies and took her into service as the ship's tender Rapide. She was lost in 1814.