Artois-class frigate

Class overview
Name: Artois
Operators: Royal Navy
Preceded by: Pallas class
Succeeded by: Alcmene class
Completed: Nine
Lost: Five (one of which after transfer to the Dutch Navy)
General characteristics
Type:frigate
Tons burthen:776 77⁄94 bm (as designed)
Length:146 ft 0 in (44.5 m) (gundeck)
121 ft 7.125 in (37.1 m) (keel)
Beam:39 ft 0 in (11.9 m)
Depth of hold:13 ft 9 in (4.19 m)
Sail plan:Full-rigged ship
Complement:270 (altered later to 315)
Armament:
  • Upper Deck:
    • Twenty-eight 18-pounder guns
  • Quarter Deck:
    • two 9-pounder guns
    • twelve 32-pounder carronades
  • Forecastle:
    • two 9-pounder guns
    • two 32-pounder carronades

The Artois class sailing frigates were a series of nine ships built to a 1793 design by Sir John Henslow, which served in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Seven of these ships were built by contract with commercial builders,while the remaining pair (Tamar and Clyde) were dockyard-built - the latter built using "fir" (pitch pine) instead of the normal oak.

They were armed with a main battery of 28 eighteen-pounder cannon on their upper deck, the main gun deck of a frigate. Besides this battery, they also carried two 9-pounders together with twelve 32-pounder carronades on the quarter deck, and another two 9-pounders together with two 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle.

Ships in class

References

Robert Gardiner, The Heavy Frigate, Conway Maritime Press, London 1994.

Rif Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. 2nd edition, Seaforth Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-1-84415-717-4.