Razee
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A razee is a sailing ship that has been cut down (razeed) to one with fewer decks. In the Royal Navy, the operation was typically performed on a smaller two-deck 74 or 64 gun ship of the line, resulting in a large frigate. The rationale for this apparent reduction in strength was that the smaller ships of the line could no longer be used safely in fleet actions as the overall size of ships increased. The resulting razeed ship could be classed as a frigate and was stronger than the usual run of frigates. The most successful razeed ship in the Royal Navy was HMS Indefatigable which was commanded by Sir Edward Pellew.
In the United States Navy, several of the final generation of sailing frigates launched in the 1840s were cut down to become large sloops-of-war. Advances in metallurgy and artillery in the 1850s allowed the casting of guns that fired substantially heavier shot as well as shell than had been in use to this time. Thus, when the decision was made rearm these frigates with heavier but fewer guns, the reduction in crew size allowed the ships to be razeed. Their sail plan and size made them superb sailers. Although these ships carried a heavier broadside as 20 gun sloops-of-war than they did as 40 gun frigates, because they mounted fewer guns they were rerated as nominally smaller sloops-of-war. USS Cumberland, destroyed by CSS Virginia during the Battle of Hampton Roads during the American Civil War was representative of the type.
Earlier, during the transitions from galleons to ships 1650–1700, galleons were razeed not only by navies but by pirates. They would beach the vessels, pull out the saws, and remove most of the sterncastle and all the projecting forecastle. This did not reduce their gun decks, while making the razee galleon much handier:
- The castles no longer caught the wind to impeded her progress against the wind.
- She was less top-heavy in balance, and lighter overall by the removals.
- The lower sterncastle allowed the boom on the last mast to move more freely.
