HMS Kent (1652)

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Kent and HMS Kentish.
History
England
Name: Kentish
Ordered: 1 April 1652
Builder: Henry Johnson, Deptford
Launched: November 1652
Renamed: HMS Kent, 1660
Fate: Wrecked, 15 October 1672
General characteristics [1]
Class & type: Fourth-rate frigate
Tons burthen: 601 tons
Length: 107 ft (32.6 m) (keel)
Beam: 32 ft 6 in (9.9 m)
Depth of hold: 13 ft 6 in (4.1 m)
Sail plan: Full-rigged ship
Complement: 180 in 1653
Armament: 40 guns in 1652; 46 guns by 1666

HMS Kentish was a 40-gun fourth-rate frigate of the Commonwealth of England Navy, built by contract at Deptford (not in the Dockyard) and launched in November 1652.[1]

She was commissioned in early 1653 under Captain Jacob Reynolds and saw active service in the Battle of Portland on 18 February, and the Battle of the Gabbard from 2 June. Command was then passed to Captain Edward Witheridge, with Kentish returned to Chatham for the winter. In early 1654 she was assigned to the British squadron in the Mediterranean, where she remained until mid-1655.[2] Her most famous action was on 4 April 1655 when she attacked a squadron of Tunisian warships lying in Porto Farina, on the Barbary Coast. She defeated both the ships and the on-shore fort to win her third battle honour.

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, her name was changed to HMS Kent. She served in both the First and Second Dutch Wars with distinction and was involved in the Battle of Lowestoft, which remains the most crushing naval defeat in Dutch history, and the St. James's Day Battle, a two-day-long fight which ended in a closer English victory. She was wrecked in October 1672 off Cromer.[1]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Lavery, Ships of the Line vol.1, p160.
  2. Winfield 2009, p. 162

References

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