HMS Tamar or Tamer was a 16-gun Favourite-class sloop-of-war of the Royal Navy.

Tamar
History
Great Britain
NameHMS Tamar
Ordered11 January 1757
BuilderJohn Snooks, Saltash
Laid down15 March 1757
Launched23 January 1758
CommissionedJanuary 1758
In service1758–1780
RenamedHMS Pluto in 1780
Honours and
awards
Battle of Ushant (1778)
Captured30 November 1780
FateCaptured at sea by 24-gun French privateer Duc de Chartres
General characteristics
Class and type16-gun Favourite-class sloop-of-war
Tons burthen313 1594 (bm)
Length
  • 96 ft 4 in (29.4 m) (gundeck)
  • 78 ft 10 in (24.0 m) (keel)
Beam27 ft 4 in (8.3 m)
Depth of hold8 ft 3+12 in (2.5 m)
PropulsionSail
Sail planShip rig
Complement125
Armament
This plan specifically illustrates the jury rudder made on the return voyage to Britain after she lost her rudder through electrolysis between the copper sheathing and the iron rudder pintles

The ship was launched in Saltash in 1758 and stationed in Newfoundland from 1763 to 1777.

From 21 June 1764 to mid-1766, under Commander Patrick Mouat, she accompanied the Dolphin on a circumnavigation of the globe during which the latter's commander, Capt. Byron, took possession of and named the Falkland Islands in January 1765.[1]

Her Captain on 1 January 1775 is listed as Cpt. Edward Thornborough, with ship's name spelled Tamer.[2]

Converted into a fire ship and renamed Pluto in 1777

The warship hosted South Carolina's royal governor, Lord William Campbell, beginning in September 1775, when increasingly-violent patriot activity drove the governor from his home on the mainland.[3] She was renamed HMS Pluto when she was converted into a fire ship in 1777. The French privateer Duc de Chartres captured her on 30 November 1780.[4] Her subsequent fate is unknown.[5]

Citations

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  1. ^ Phillips, Michael. "Tamar". Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  2. ^ "Naval Documents of The American Revolution Volume 1 AMERICAN THEATRE: Dec. 1, 1774–Sept. 2, 1775 EUROPEAN THEATRE: Dec. 6, 1774–Aug. 9, 1775" (PDF). United States government Printing Office. Retrieved 9 December 2021 – via American Naval Records Society.
  3. ^ Richard R. Beeman (2013). Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774–1776. Basic Books. pp. 285–286. ISBN 978-0-465-03782-7.
  4. ^ Hepper (1994), p.60.
  5. ^ Demerliac (1996), p.146, #1213.

References

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  • Hepper, David J. (1994). British warship losses in the age of sail 1650–1859. Rotherfield: Jean Boudriot. ISBN 9780948864308.
  • Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships of the Age of Sail 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Seaforth. ISBN 9781844157006.
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