Nautical Research Journal 195
4. HMS Swan was launched in 1767 and later served in the early British American War (1774-1777). T e 14-gun sloop-of-war also saw duty throughout the British Empire subsequent to this confl ict.
sister ship, Kingfi sher, was launched. Crewed by 100 seamen, both became prototypes for a class of fast, potent and smaller war-sloops. Twenty-three more ships of nearly identical design were ordered between 1773 and 1779; these ships formed the “standard” ship-sloop design of the Royal Navy during the American War, during which eleven of them were lost. Remaining vessels went on to serve during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. Only six survived into the 1800s. As the North American War heated up, these fast sailing ships were built quickly to both capture American privateers and escort troop and support convoys. Usually no more than nine to ten months elapsed between keel-laying and fi tting-out for service.
In 1779, Swan was converted to an 8-gun fi reship and renamed Explosion. Aſt er the American War, Swan reverted to full war-sloop status and served in the
East Indies, the Caribbean (Jamaica) and the North Atlantic, where the ship captured French and Dutch privateers. Aſt er thirty-one years of near-continuous war duty, the sloop’s fi nal active service saw it return, in 1798, to Halifax, home of the North American squadron, which had been its fi rst station three decades earlier. Swan sailed home for Portsmouth and was paid off in 1801. T e ship sold for £800 in 1814.
Of the twenty-fi ve sloops built to this specifi cations none matched Swan’s length of service. Only two siblings outlived Swan: Savage (launched 1778; in service to 1781 and captured, disposed of 1815) and T orn (launched 1780; in service for twenty-six years, disposed of 1816).
Swan’s design provided for sixteen gunports (eight
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