1637 Group

The ''1637 Group'' of warships for the Navy Royal of King Charles I consisted of two 300 ton 'pinnaces' (early frigates) intended to carry fourteen pieces of ordnance and sixteen banks of oars, which were ordered on 12 December 1636. These vessels as built would carry thirty pieces of ordnance with ten pairs of ports on the gundeck, with two pairs of lighter guns forward and four pairs aft on the upper deck. The waist would be unprotected until two more pairs of gun ports were added later. Their measurements would compare favourably to the 'frigate' type vessels built a decade later. Their proportions (their keel length to beam ratio of 3.46 : 1) anticipated by nearly a decade the true frigates like the ''Constant Warwick''. Their initial deployment was to the coast of Morocco, where both ships participated in an attack against the Barbary corsairs of Salé.

Design, specification and reconstruction

The ships were built in Bermondsey under contract. Only order dates and launch dates are available for each ship. The specified dimensions were keel length with a breadth of and depth of hold of . The builder's measurement was consequently 323 tons. When the vessels were remeasured after being girdled their beam was increased to and depth of hold reduced to . Their builder's measurement was then 357 tons. Even with their wider beam of 27 ft 4in after the girdling, their new keel length : beam to ratio of 3.29 : 1 meant that they were similar in proportion to the ''Constant Warwick''.

The gun armaments will be specified on within the individual ship articles as they varied between the vessels. As built they carried thirty guns, comprising culverinsA culverin was a gun of 4,500 pounds with a 5.5 inch bore firing a 17.5 pound (later 18 pound) shot with a twelve pound powder charge. and demi-culverins on the gundeck (where they had ten pairs of gunports),A demi-culverin was a gun of 3,400 pounds with a four inch bore firing a 9.5 pound (later 9 pound) shot with an eight pound powder charge. and sakers on the quarterdeck and forecastle (where they had four and two pairs of gunports respectively).A saker was a gun of 1,400 pounds with a 3.5 inch bore firing a 5.5 pound shot with an 5.5 pound powder charge. The initial manning of the ships was 120 personnel up to 1652. During the battles of the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–54) these two ships were rated as 32 or 34 guns, with 140 personnel, but by the Stuart Restoration in June 1660 each was listed as having a (peacetime) establishment of just 30 guns again and 100 men.Winfield

The consensus is that in peacetime they retained 18 guns in their gundeck (of the 12 culverins and 8 demi-culverins carried in wartime), but their upper deck (created by building a complete deck linking the forecastle and quarterdeck) had just 12 sakers (4 forward and 8 aft of the unarmed waist).

Ships of the ''1637'' Group

Notes

Citations

References

* British Warships in the Age of Sail (1603 – 1714), by Rif Winfield, published by Seaforth Publishing, England © Rif Winfield 2009, EPUB , Chapter 4, The Fourth Rates - 'Small Ships', Vessels Acquired from 24 March 1603, 1637 Group
* Ships of the Royal Navy, by J.J. Colledge, revised and updated by Lt-Cdr Ben Warlow and Steve Bush, published by Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley, Great Britain, © the estate of J.J. Colledge, Ben Warlow and Steve Bush 2020, EPUB
* The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600 - 1815, by Brian Lavery, published by US Naval Institute Press © Brian Lavery 1989, , Part V Guns, Type of Guns

{{1637 Group

Ships of the Royal Navy