The ''Cyrus''-class

sixth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works a ...

s of the

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were a series of sixteen-flush decked

sloops of war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

built to an 1812 design by Sir William Rule, the

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. The first nine ships of the class were launched in 1813 and the remaining seven in 1814. The vessels of the class served at the end of the

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. They were built on the lines of , which was based in turn on the French ship . The ''Cyrus'' class was intended to be the counter to the new ''Frolic''-class ship-rigged sloops that were under construction for the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. No encounter took place between any vessel of the ''Frolic'' class and one of the ''Cyrus'' class, but HMS ''Levant'' was captured by the

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American frigate .Gardiner, p. 87 With the re-organisation of the rating system which took place in the Royal Navy effective from 1 January 1817, the ''Cyrus''-class flush-decked ships were re-classified as 20-gun sloops.

Ships in class

Notes

References

* * Rif Winfield, ''British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817'', Chatham Publishing, London 2005. {{Cyrus class post ship Ship classes