Bermuda Sloop - Naval Use

Naval Use

The characteristics of the Bermudian vessels were such that, when the Royal Navy began building up its establishment in Bermuda following US independence, it commissioned large numbers of these vessels from Bermudian builders, and bought many more up from trade. As the long-boomed, single-masted designs were such demanding sailers, the navy favoured multiple-masted designs as they did not require the large, very experienced crews demanded by the single-masted designs (it was for the same reason that the Bermuda Sloop Foundation chose a three-masted design for its new Spirit of Bermuda, which is a sail training ship for inexperienced youths). They also had the advantage of longer decks, which carried more guns. Although, today, these vessels might be considered schooners, and some might debate the use of the term sloop for multiple-masted vessels, the Royal Navy rated such vessels as ship sloops. The Navy purchased two such vessels on the stocks in Bermuda in 1795; these were lengthened while building and completed in 1796 as HMS Hunter and HMS Rover, each with 16 guns. Subsequently the Navy ordered two more to be built in 1797 from the same source, HMS Dasher and HMS Driver, each of 400 tons, and well-armed with 18 guns; six further vessels were built to these specifications during the Napoleonic War.

They were intended to counter the then-extant menace of French privateers, which the Navy's ships-of-the-line were ill-designed to counter. Eventually, Bermuda sloops became the standard advice vessels of the navy, used for communications, reconnoitering, anti-slaving, and anti-smuggling, and other roles to which they were well suited.

The most notable examples of these were HMS Pickle, which raced back to England with news of the British victory and the death of Admiral Lord Nelson at the end of the Battle of Trafalgar (it had also been Bermudian picket boats which had given warning of the enemy fleet), and HMS Whiting, of 79 tons and four guns, which lowered anchor in the harbour of Hampton Roads on 8 July 1812. She was carrying despatches from Portsmouth, and, while her captain was being rowed ashore, the American privateer Dash, which happened to be leaving port, seized the vessel. The crew of the Whiting had not yet received news of the American declaration of war, and her capture was the first naval action of the American War of 1812. (The Americans released her but a French privateer captured her almost immediately thereafter.)