The ''Musquito'' class was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

class of two 4-gun

floating batteries A floating battery is a kind of armed watercraft, often improvised or experimental, which carries heavy armament but has few other qualities as a warship. History Use of timber rafts loaded with cannon by Danish defenders of Copenhagen a ...

built to a design by Admiral Sir Sidney Smith specifically to serve with his squadron in French coastal waters. Both were named and ordered under Admiralty Order 26 May 1794.

Design and construction

Smith had the two vessels built with tapered, flat-bottomed hulls, so that they could go into shallow waters. For stability he had them fitted with three Shank sliding or drop keels (actually removable centreboards). Two of the

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

s were parallel and forward and the third was aft. (The Shank keels were the invention of naval architect Captain

John Schank Admiral John Schank (6 February 1823) was an officer of the British Royal Navy known for his skill in ship construction and mechanical design. Biography He was the son of Alexander Schank of Castlerig, Fife, Scotland. He entered the Royal Navy w ...

.) Wells & Co. built both vessels at

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events ...

in 1794 and launched them there that same year.

Deployment

''Musquito'' was based at the St Marcou islands and ''Sandfly'' was based at

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...

. After the loss of ''Musquito'', ''Sandfly'' moved to St Marcou.

Ships

''Musquito''

''Musquito'' was commissioned in May 1795 under Lieutenant William McCarthy. A gale blew her out of the anchorage at the St Marcou islands and wrecked her on the French coast on 20 June 1795, with the loss of five lives, including McCarthy.

''Sandfly''

participated in the

Battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf The Battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf was an engagement fought off the Îles Saint-Marcouf near the Cotentin peninsula on the Normandy coast of France in May 1798 during the French Revolutionary Wars. Dislodging a British garrison on the islands ...

in 1798. She was

paid off Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to placing a warship in ...

in 1802 and

broken up Ship-breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships for either a source of Interchangeable parts, parts, which can be sold for re-use, ...

in 1803.

Citations

References

* * * {{Musquito class floating battery + + Ship classes of the Royal Navy