HDMS Kronprindsens Lystfregat (1785)

Career (Denmark-Norway)
Name: Kronprindsens Lystfregat ("Crown Prince's Pleasure Yacht")
Builder: M/Shipwright Adam Hayes, Deptford Dockyard[1]
Laid down: March 1785
Launched: 20 August 1785
Acquired: By gift
Commissioned: 4 October 1785 (sailed for Denmark)[1]
Fate: Given back to the British after the Battle of Copenhagen
Career (United Kingdom)
Name: Prince Frederick
Acquired: Gift from Denmark in 1807
Renamed: HMS Princess Augusta
Fate: Sold August 1818
General characteristics [1]
Class and type:Royal yacht
Tons burthen:218 (bm); 220 by calculation
Length:89 ft 5 in (27.25 m) (gundeck)
74 ft 10 1⁄4 in (22.816 m)(keel)
Beam:23 ft 6 in (7.16 m)
Depth of hold:10 ft 0 in (3.05 m)
Complement:59 officers and crew (Danish service)[2]
Armament:10 × 4-pounder guns (Danish service)[2]
For other ships of the same name, see HMS Princess Augusta.

HDMS Kronprindsens Lystfregat was a yacht launched in Britain in 1785. King George III gave it to his nephew, the Crown Prince of Denmark. In 1807 Britain attacked Copenhagen. The British then took whatever vessels they hadn't destroyed, but made a conscious and conspicuous exception of Kronprindsens Lystfregat. The Danes, in a gesture of contempt, manned her with a crew of 17 captured British sailors, put one of them in charge, and sent her back to Britain.

The Royal Navy took her into service as the royal yacht, HMS Prince Frederick. On 25 July 1816 the Admiralty registered her a third rate and renamed the yacht HMS Princess Augusta.[Note 1] The Admiralty put her and her predecessor, also named Princess Augusta, up for sale and sold her to Thomas Pittman on 13 August 1818 for £500.[3][1]

Kronprindsens Lystfregat cost £10,347 to build and furnish.[1] It is not clear that she got much use, either in Denmark or the United Kingdom. Captain Thomas Hardy commanded Prince Frederick/Princess Augusta for three years prior to her sale.

Footnotes

Notes
  1. ↑ Re-rating Princess Augusta as a third rate meant her commander would be a post captain. This in turn gave the Royal Navy a post that it could offer to senior captains as a sinecure.
Citations
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Winfield (2008), p.400.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 record card at the Danish Orlogsmuseet
  3. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 17385. p. 1400. 4 August 1818.

References