English ship Merhonour (1590)

Career (England)
Name: Merhonour
Builder: Woolwich Dockyard
Launched: 1590
Reinstated: 1615 after rebuilding
Fate: Sold, 1650
General characteristics as built [1]
Length: 100 ft (30 m) (keel)
Beam: 37 ft (11 m)
Depth of hold: 17 ft (5.2 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Complement: 400 (by 1603)
Armament:

39 guns:
General characteristics after 1615 rebuild[Note 1][1]
Class and type: 40-gun Royal Ship
Tons burthen: 800 tons (812.8 tonnes)
Length: 112 ft (34 m) (keel)
Beam: 38 ft 7 in (11.76 m)
Depth of hold: 16 ft 5 in (5.00 m)
Propulsion: Sails
Sail plan: Full rigged ship
Complement: 400
Armament:

40 guns

  • 2 x cannon periers
  • 6 x demi-cannon
  • 12 x culverins
  • 12 x demi-culverins
  • 8 x sakers
  • 4 x smaller guns

Merhonour[Note 2] was a ship of the Navy Royal of England. She was built in 1590 by Mathew Baker at Woolwich Dockyard, and was rebuilt by Phineas Pett I at Woolwich between 1612 and 1615, being relaunched on 6 March 1615 as a 40-gun Royal Ship.[1] She was then laid up at Chatham, only briefly returning to service in the 1630s. She was nevertheless considered to be one of the fastest ships in the Navy.[1]

Merhonour was sold out of the navy in 1650.[2]

Notes

  1. ^ Lavery's details are challenged by both Colledge, and Winfield. Both describe a 1590 build date at Woolwich, while Winfield describes in detail the armament and dimensions both as launched and after the 1615 rebuild.
  2. ^ The 'HMS' prefix was not used until the middle of the Eighteenth Century, but is sometimes applied retrospectively

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d Winfield. British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1603-1714: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. 
  2. ^ Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p158.

References