Pallas-class frigate (1791)

For the later class of frigates, see Pallas-class frigate (1808).

The Pallas-class frigates were a series of three frigates built to a 1791 design by John Henslow, which served in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Pallas-class frigate
Class overview
Name	Pallas class
Operators	Royal Navy
Preceded by	Perseverance class
Succeeded by	Artois class
Completed	3
Lost	2
General characteristics
Type	Frigate
Tons burthen	776 77⁄94 bm (as designed)
Length	135 ft 0 in (41.1 m) (gundeck) 112 ft 8+1⁄4 in (34.3 m) (keel)
Beam	36 ft 0 in (11.0 m)
Depth of hold	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Sail plan	Full-rigged ship
Complement	257 (altered in 1796 to 254)
Armament	Upper deck: 26 × 18-pounder guns Qd: 4 × 6-pounder guns + 4 × 32-pounder carronades Fc:2 × 6-pounder bow chasers + 2 × 32-pounder carronades

The trio were all dockyard-built in order to use spare shipbuilding capacity. The orders were originally assigned in December 1790 to the Royal Dockyards at Plymouth and Portsmouth, but in February 1791 the orders were transferred to Chatham and Woolwich Dockyards respectively. They were the first and only 32-gun Royal Navy frigates designed to be armed with the eighteen-pounder cannon on their upper deck, the main gun deck of a frigate.

Ships in class

• HMS Stag
  • Builder: Chatham Royal Dockyard
  • Ordered: 9 December 1790
  • Laid down: March 1792
  • Launched: 12 July 1794
  • Completed: 5 October 1794
  • Fate: Wrecked in a storm in Vigo Bay 6 September 1800, and burnt the next day.
• HMS Unicorn
  • Builder: Chatham Royal Dockyard
  • Ordered: 9 December 1790
  • Laid down: March 1792
  • Launched: 12 July 1794
  • Completed: 5 October 1794
  • Fate: Broken up March 1815 at Deptford Dockyard.
• HMS Pallas
  • Builder: Woolwich Royal Dockyard
  • Ordered: 9 December 1790
  • Laid down: May 1792
  • Launched: 19 December 1793
  • Completed: 5 March 1794.
  • Fate: Wrecked in a storm in Cawsand Bay, Cornwall on 4 April 1798

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.

External links

• Media related to HMS Pallas (ship, 1793) at Wikimedia Commons