Baltimore class sloop

Class overview
Operators:  Royal Navy
Preceded by: Wolf class
Succeeded by: Merlin class
Built: 1742-1743
In commission: 1742-1762
Completed: 3
Lost: 2
General characteristics (common design)
Type: Sloop-of-war
Tons burthen: 248 4894 bm
Length:
  • 88 ft 0 in (26.8 m) (gundeck)
  • 74 ft 0 in (22.6 m) (keel)
Beam: 25 ft 1 in (7.6 m)
Depth of hold:
  • 10 ft 6 in (3.20 m) (Baltimore and Saltash)
  • 11 ft 0 in (3.35 m) (Drake)
Sail plan: Snow
Complement: 110
Armament:
  • 10 (later 14) × 4-pounder guns;
  • also 12/14 x ½-pounder swivel guns

The Baltimore class was a class of three sloops of wooden construction built for the Royal Navy during 1742-43. Two were ordered in 1742 and a third in 1743, and constituted a further increase in size from the 200 burthen tons which had been the normal size from 1728 to 1739; the Baltimore was built to a design by Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, one of the members of the Admiralty Board at that time; it is uncertain whether the other two ships were built to the same design, or to the same overall dimensions but to a design prepared by Jacob Allin, the Surveyor of the Navy.

Although initially armed with ten 4-pounder guns, this class was built with nine pairs of gunports on the upper deck (each port flanked by two pairs of row-ports), and the sloops in 1744 had their ordnance increased to fourteen guns. The Baltimore, the only one of the three to survive beyond 1748, was converted into a bomb vessel in 1758.

Vessels

Name Ordered Builder Launched Notes
Baltimore 7 July 1742 Thomas West,
Deptford
30 December 1742 Sold 16 December 1762
Saltash 19 July 1742 John Quallett,
Rotherhithe
30 December 1742 Sunk 24 June 1746
off Beachy Head.
Drake 5 February 1743 John Buxton, Jnr.,
Deptford
28 September 1743 Sold 18 October 1748

References


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