Serpente-class corvette

Last updated
Class overview
NameSerpente
Operators
In commission1796–1816
Completed4
Lost1
Retired3
General characteristics [1]
Type Corvette
Displacement727 ton (French)
Tons burthen350 (bm) [Note 1]
Length40.28 m (132 ft 2 in) (overall)
Beam9.745 m (31 ft 11.7 in)
Draught3.84 m (12 ft 7 in)
PropulsionSail
Complement188
Armament20 × 18-pounder long guns
ArmourTimber

The Serpente class was a class of four 20-gun corvettes for the French Navy, designed by Charles-Henri Tellier as a follow-on to the Etna-class corvettes of the previous year. [2] Four separate commercial shipbuilders were involved in their construction by contract, with three being ordered at Honfleur in 1794 and a fourth at Le Havre across the Seine estuary in 1795. The vessels were flush-decked and designed to carry a battery of twenty 18-pounder guns. [2]

Contents

The Royal Navy captured one of the four vessels in the class, and burnt another in action.

Serpente class (4 ships)

Builder: Jean-Louis Pestel, Honfleur
Begun: October 1794
Launched: 1 September 1795
Completed: January 1796
Fate: Floating battery 1806, hulked 1807. Condemned to be broken up 1815.
Builder: Louis Deros, later Nicolas Loquet, Honfleur
Begun: September 1794
Launched: 8 June 1800
Completed: September 1800
Fate: Employed as survey ship for Australian expedition in 1800. Powder hulk 1807, later barracks ship. Deleted 1819.
Notes: Renamed from Uranie in 1797, then from Galatée in June 1800. Loquet took over her building after Deros's early death, but then refused to launch her until he was paid.
Builder: Fortier Brothers, Honfleur
Begun: October 1794
Launched: 29 December 1795
Completed: January 1796
Fate: Broken up in Rochefort August/September 1830
Notes: Captured on 25 June 1803 off the Azores by HMS Endymion, and became HMS Bacchante, sold 1809.
Builder: Foouache & Reine, Le Havre
Begun: September 1795
Launched: 10 May 1797
Completed: February 1798
Fate: Destroyed on 29 May 1798 in the mouth of the Dives (river) by HMS Hydra.

Notes

  1. This is based on the descriptions of the member of the class that the Royal Navy captured, as described in Winfield. [2]

Citations

  1. Winfield and Roberts (2015), pp. 172-3.
  2. 1 2 3 Winfield (2008), pp. 232 & 272.

Related Research Articles

HMS <i>Babet</i> (1794)

HMS Babet was a 20-gun sixth-rate post ship of the British Royal Navy. She had previously been a corvette of the French Navy under the name Babet, until her capture in 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars. She served with the British, capturing several privateers and other vessels, and was at the Battle of Groix. She disappeared in the Caribbean in 1800, presumably having foundered.

The Annibal class was a class of two 74-gun ships of the French Navy. The type was one of the first achievements of Jacques-Noël Sané. His first design - on 24 November 1777 - was for a ship of 166 pieds length, but he produced an amended design on 10 January 1779 for the Annibal, and a further amended design on 3 March 1780 for her near-sister Northumberland. Both ships were captured during the Fourth Battle of Ushant on 1 June 1794 off Ushant, and were added to but never commissioned into the British Navy.

<i>Tonnant</i>-class ship of the line

The Tonnant class was a series of eight 80-gun ships of the line designed in 1787 by Jacques-Noël Sané, whose plans for the prototype were approved on 29 September 1787. With sixteen gunports on the lower deck on each side these were the most effective two-deckers of their era. Their broadside of 1,102 livres equated to 1,190 British pounds weight, over 50% more than the standard British 74-gun ship, and even greater than that of a British 100-gun three-decker.

The Preneuse class was a type of two 44-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed by Raymond-Antoine Haran and built at Rochefort, Charente-Maritime.

<i>Virginie</i>-class frigate Class of French navy frigates

The Virginie class was a class of ten 40-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1793 by Jacques-Noël Sané. An eleventh vessel (Zephyr) begun in 1794 was never completed.

<i>Pallas</i>-class frigate (1808)

The Pallas class constituted the standard design of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy during the Napoleonic Empire period. Jacques-Noël Sané designed them in 1805, as a development of his seven-ship Hortense class of 1802, and over the next eight years the Napoléonic government ordered in total 62 frigates to be built to this new design. Of these some 54 were completed, although ten of them were begun for the French Navy in shipyards within the French-occupied Netherlands or Italy, which were then under French occupation; these latter ships were completed for the Netherlands or Austrian navies after 1813.

French corvette <i>Géographe</i> French Navy serpente-class corvette launched in 1800

Géographe was a 20-gun Serpente-class corvette of the French Navy. She was named Uranie in 1797, and renamed Galatée in 1799, still on her building site. Her builder refused to launch her, as he had not been paid to that time. Finally launched in June 1800, she was renamed Géographe on 23 August 1800.

<i>Seine</i>-class frigate 42-gun frigates of the French Navy

The Seine class was a class of four 42-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1793 by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. A fifth vessel, Furieuse, was originally ordered at Cherbourg in February 1794 to Forfait's Romaine-class design, but was instead completed to the design of the Seine class.

<i>Romaine</i>-class frigate

The Romaine class was a class of nine frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1794 by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. They were originally designated as "bomb-frigates" and were intended to carry a main armament of twenty 24-pounder guns and a 12-inch mortar mounted on a turntable in front of the mizzen mast. Experience quickly led to the mortars being removed, and the 24-pounders were replaced by 18-pounder guns. The ships also featured a shot furnace, but they proved impractical, dangerous to the ships themselves, and were later discarded. A further eleven ships ordered to this design in 1794 were not built, or were completed to altered designs.

The Cocarde class was a class of three 40-gun/12-pounder frigates of the French Navy. They were designed by Pierre Duhamel in 1793.

<i>Galathée</i>-class frigate

The Galathée class was a type of 32-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed by Raymond-Antoine Haran, with 26 × 12-pounder and 6 × 6-pounder guns. six units were built in all, seeing service during the Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War, and later in the French Revolutionary Wars. The Royal Navy captured and took into service five of the six, the sixth being wrecked early in the French Revolutionary Wars.

The Félicité class was a type of (12-pounder-armed) 32-gun frigate of the French Navy, designed by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. This was the first class of 12-pounder armed frigate to be designed and built in France following the end of the War for American Independence.

<i>Nymphe</i>-class frigate

The Nymphe class was a class of four 34/44-gun frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1781 by Pierre-Augustin Lamothe. The prototype (Nymphe) was one of the earliest of the frigates to be armed with 18-pounder long guns. The first two - Nymphe and Thétis - carried 34 guns comprising twenty-six 18-pounders on the upper deck and eight 8-pounders on the quarterdeck and forecastle. The latter two - Cybèle and Concorde - carried an increased armament of 44 guns comprising twenty-eight 18-pounders on the upper deck and twelve 8-pounders plus four 36-pounder obuses on the quarterdeck and forecastle. Thétis was retro-fitted by 1794 to carry the same increased armament as the last two; she was rebuilt at Rochefort from October 1802 to September 1803.

The Etna class was a class of six 16 or 18-gun corvettes with a flat hull, designed by Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait and his pupil Charles-Henri Tellier. Four separate commercial shipbuilders were involved in their construction by contract - including André-François Normand, Courtois and Denise at Honfleur, and Fouache at Le Havre, while the sixth vessel was built by Pierre Ozanne at Cherbourg Dockyard. The vessels were flush-decked and originally designed to carry a 12-inch mortar. However, as the British navy captured Etna within a year and a half of her launch at which time she was not carrying any mortar, it is possible that the design was modified quite early to delete the mortar.

The Minerve class was a type of 40-gun frigate of the French Navy, carrying 18-pounder long guns as their main armament. Six ships of this type were built at Toulon Dockyard, and launched between 1782 and 1794. The frigates served the French Navy briefly during the French Revolutionary Wars. The Royal Navy captured all six between 1793 and 1799 and took them into service, with all but one serving in the Napoleonic Wars, and some thereafter.

<i>Pégase</i>-class ship of the line

The Pégase class was a class of 74-gun ships of the French Navy, built to a common design by naval constructor Antoine Groignard. It comprised six ships, all ordered during 1781 and all named on 13 July 1781.

<i>Bonne Citoyenne</i>-class corvette

The four Bonne Citoyenne-class corvettes were built to a design by Raymond-Antoine Hasan. All members of the class were flush-decked, but with a long topgallant forecastle. The corvettes were launched between 1794 and 1796, and the Royal Navy captured all four between 1796 and 1798.

<i>Vésuve</i>-class gunbrig

The Vésuve class was a class of seven 4-gun gunbrigs (bricks-canonniers).

Jean-Louis Pestel was a French ship builder and naval architect active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the older brother of François Pestel, who was also a ship builder and naval architect. Vessels Jean-Louis Pestel built or designed include:

The Triomphante class was a class of four small corvettes built for the French Navy, designed by Jean-Francois Chaumont as a follow-on to the Foudre-class corvette-canonnières. Two of the Triomphante-class were built by Jean Tupinier himself at Le Havre, and two by Jean-Louis Pestel at Honfleur. The vessels were flush-decked and designed to carry a battery of four 24-pounder guns.

References